#rawblackmetal — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #rawblackmetal, aggregated by home.social.
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Stuck in the Filter: August 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists, but now the humidity comes in full force as storm systems wreak havoc upon the coasts. I hide in my cramped closet of an office, lest I be washed out once again by an unsuspecting deluge. However, I still send my minions out into the facility, bound by duty to search for those metallic scraps on which we feast.
Fortuitously, most all of those imps I sent out came back alive, and with wares! BEHOLD!
Kenstrosity’s Galactic Gremlin
Silent Millenia // Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil [August 26th, 2025 – Self-Release]
Have you ever seen such a delightfully cheesy cover? Probably, but it’s been a while for me. I bought Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil, the second raw symphonic black metal opus from Finnish one-man act Silent Millenia, on the strength of the artwork alone. Little did I know that what lay beyond this crimson veil was some of the most fun melodic black metal this side of Moonlight Sorcery. The same low-fi roughness that personifies Old Nick’s work grounds Silent Millenia’s starbound songwriting as it traverses the universe with an energetic punch reminiscent of Emperor or Stormkeep (“Awaken the Celestial Spell,” “Daemonic Mastery”). To help differentiate Silent Millenia’s sound from that of their peers, a gothic atmosphere ensorcells much of this material to great effect, merging eerie Victorian melodies with galactic adventurism in an unlikely pair (“Enthrone the Spectral”). Swirling synths and sparkling twinkles abound as well, creating blissful moments of interest as frosty tremolos and piercing blasts take full advantage of the false sense of security those entrancing clouds of synthetic instrumentation create (“Benighted Path to Darkness Mysterium,” “Reign in Cosmic Majesty”). Simply put, Celestial Twilight is an unexpected gem of a symphonic black metal record, bursting with killer ideas and infinite levels of raw, unabashed fun. You should hear it!
Kronos’ Unexpected Unearthments
Street Sects // Dry Drunk [August 15th, 2025 – Self Release]
Dry Drunk sticks to your inner surfaces, draining down like cigarette tar along paralyzed cilia to pool in your lungs until the cells themselves foment rebellion. Once it’s in you, you feel paranoid, wretched, and alone. So it’s the proper follow-up to Street Sects’ visionary debut, End Position. Like that record, Dry Drunk plumbs the most mundane and unsavory gutters of America for a cast of protagonists that it dwells in or dispatches with a mixture of pity and disgust, with vocalist Leo Ashline narrating their violent crimes and self-hatred in a mixture of croons, shrieks, and snarls that cook the air before the speakers into the scent of booze and rotten teeth. And like that record, Shaun Ringsmuth (Glassing) dresses the sets with a fractal litter of snaps, squeals, crashes, gunshots, and grinding electronics, caked in tar and collapsing just as soon as it is swept into a structure. And like End Position, Dry Drunk is a masterpiece. The impeccable six-song stretch from “Love Makes You Fat” through “Riding the Clock” ties you to the bumper and drags you along some of the duo’s most creative side-roads, through the simmering, straightjacketed sludge of “Baker Act” to the chopped-up, smirking electronica of “Eject Button.” Swerving between addled, unintelligible agony and unforgettable anthems, Dry Drunk, like End Position before it is nothing less than the life of a junkie scraped together, heated on a spoon, and injected into your head. Once you’ve taken a hit, you will never be quite the same.
Thus Spoke’s Frightening Fragments
Defacement // Doomed [August 22nd, 2025 – Self Release]
There’s music for every vibe.1 The one Defacement fits is an exclusively extreme metal flavor of moody that is only appreciable by genre fans, made tangibly more eerie by their persistent idiosyncratic use of dark ambient interludes amidst the viciously distorted blackened death. Audiences—and reviewers—tend to disparage these electronic segments, but I’ve always felt their crackling presence increases the analog horror of it all, and rather than being a breather from the intensity, they prolong the nausea, the sense of emptiness, and the abject fearfulness of head-based trauma. This latter concept grows more metaphorical still on Doomed, where the violence is inside the mind, purpose-erasing, and emotionally-detaching. The ambience might be the most sadly beautiful so far (“Mournful,” and “Clouded” especially), and the transitions into nightmarish heaviness arguably the most fluid. And the metal is undoubtedly the most ambitious, dynamic, and magnificent of Defacement’s career, combining their most gruesome dissonance (“Portrait”) with their most bizarrely exuberant guitar melodies (“Unexplainable,” “Unrecognised”). Solos drip tangibly with (emotional) resonance (“Unexplainable,” “Absent”) and there’s not a breath or a moment of wasted space. Yes, the band’s heavier side can suffer from a nagging sense of homogeneous mass, but it remains transporting. While I can appreciate why others do not appreciate Defacement, this is the first of their outings I can truthfully say mesmerised me on first listen.
ClarkKent’s Heated Hymns
Phantom Fire // Phantom Fire [August 8th, 2025 – Edged Circle Productions]
While I waded through the murky depths of the August promo sump, Steel implored me to take the eponymous third album from Phantom Fire. “The AMG commentariat love blackened heavy metal,” he said. I disregarded his advice at my peril, and while I ended up enjoying what I grabbed, it turns out this would have been solid too. Featuring members from Enslaved, Kraków. Hellbutcher, and Aeternus, Phantom Fire play old school speed metal that harks back to the likes of Motörhead and Iron Maiden’s Killers. Thanks to healthy doses of bass and production values that allow the instruments to shine, each song is infused with energetic grooves. The music sounds fresh, crisp, and clear, from the booming drums to Eld’s “blackened” snarls. Early tracks “Eternal Void” and “All For None” show off the catchy blend of simple guitar riffs and a hoppin’ bass accompanied by energetic kit work. While placing a somewhat lengthy instrumental track in the middle of a record usually slows it down, “Fatal Attraction” turns out to be a highlight. It tells a tragic love story involving a motorcycle with nothing but instruments, an engine revving, and some police sirens. The second half of Phantom Fire gets a bit on the weirder side, turning to some stoner and psychedelia. There’s a push and pull between the stoner and Motörhead speed stuff on songs like “Malphas” and “Submersible Pt. 2,” and this blend actually works pretty well. It turns out that they aren’t phantom after all—these guys are truly fire.
Burning Witches // Inquisition [August 22nd, 2025 – Napalm Records]
With six albums in eight years, Swiss quintet Burning Witches has really been burning rubber. While such prolific output in such a short time frame generally spells trouble, Inquisition is a solid piece of heavy/power metal. Burning Witches dabbles in a mix of speedy power metal and mid-tempo heavy metal, often sounding like ’80s stalwarts Judas Priest and Def Leppard. With Laura Guldemond’s gruff voice, they produce a more weighty, less happy version of power metal than the likes of Fellowship or Frozen Crown. While the songs stick to formulaic structures, tempo shifts from song to song help keep things from growing stale. We see this variety right from the get-go, where “Soul Eater” takes a high-energy approach before moving into the more mellow “Shame.” There’s even a pretty solid ballad, “Release Me,” that grounds the back half of the record. Songs of the sort that Burning Witches write need catchy choruses, and fortunately, they deliver. “High Priestess of the Night” is a particular standout, delivering a knock-out punch in its delivery. It helps that the instrumental parts are well-executed, from crunchy riffs to subdued solos to booming blast beats. Anyone looking for a solid bit of power metal that’s not too heavy on the cheese will find this worth a listen.
Deathhammer // Crimson Dawn [August 29th, 2025 – Hells Headbangers Records]
Celebrating 20 years of blackened speed, Deathhammer drop LP number six with the kind of energy that exhausted parents dread to see in their children at bedtime. This is my first foray with the band, and I am in awe of the relentless level of manic energy they keep throughout Crimson Dawn’s 39 minutes. If science could learn how to harness their energy, we’d have an endless source of renewables. The two-piece out of Norway channels classic Slayer on crack and even has moments reminiscent of Painkiller-era Judas Priest. They play non-stop thrash cranked to 11, with persistent blast beats and some dual guitar parts that leave your head spinning from the rapid-fire directions the riffs fire off in. The heart of the mania is singer Sergeant Salsten. His crazed vocals are amazing—snarling, shouting, and shrieking in a way that took me back to the manic pitch Judge Doom could reach in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He sings so fast that on the chorus of “Crimson Dawn,” it sounds like he says “Griffindor,” which had me searching confusedly for the Harry Potter tag. This was probably my favorite song, not just because of the Griffindor thing, but because that chorus is so catchy. Either way, it’s tough to pick a standout track because they all grip you by the throat and don’t let go. Crimson Dawn is a ton of fun and a must listen if you like your music fast.
Grin Reaper’s Bountiful Blight
Kallias // Digital Plague [August 14th, 2025 – Self Release]
Machine gun drumming, spacey synths, Morbid Angel-meets-Meshuggah riffing, Turian-esque barking and Voyager-reminiscent vocal melodies…what the fuck is going on here? The only thing more surprising than someone having the moxie to blend all these things together is how well they work in concert. Kallias doesn’t hold back on sophomore album Digital Plague, and the result is a rocket-fueled blast through forty-four minutes of eclectic, addictive prog. The mishmash of styles keeps the album fresh and unpredictable while never dipping its toes in inconsistent waters, and staccato rhythms propel listeners through eight tracks without losing steam. As with any prog metal worth its salt, Kallias brandishes technical prowess, and their cohesion belies the relatively short time they’ve been putting out music.2 The mix is well-suited to spotlight whoever needs it at a given time, whether the bass is purring (“Exogíini Kyriarchía”), the drums are being annihilated (“Pyrrhic Victory”), or a guitar solo nears Pettrucian wankery (“Phenomenal in Theory”). The end result is three-quarters of an hour filled with myriad influences that fuse into a sound all Kallias’s own, and it’s one I’ve returned to several times since discovering (also, credit to MontDoom for his stunning artwork, which helped initially draw my attention). Check it out—you’ll be sick if you avoid this one like the Plague.
Luke’s Kaleidoscopic Kicks
Giant Haze // Cosmic Mother [August 22nd, 2025 – Tonzonen Records]
Whereas many of my colleagues are bracing themselves for cooler conditions and harsh winters to come, in my neck of the woods, things are warming up. While my own wintry August filter proved scarce, there was one particular summery gem to lift moods with burly riffs and fat stoner grooves. Unheralded German act Giant Haze seemingly emerged out of nowhere during a random Bandcamp deep dive. Debut LP Cosmic Mother channels the good old days of ’90s-inspired desert rock, featuring grungy, doomy vibes via a groovy batch of riff-centric, hard-rocking and uplifting jams, evoking the nostalgic spirit of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch and perhaps even a dash of Danzig. Punching out raucous, groove-soaked hard rockers with skyscraping hooks (“Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King of Tomorrow,” “Panic to Ride”), summery, funk–psych jams (“Sunrise”), and bluesy, punk-infused fireballs (“Crank in Public,” “Shrink Age”) Giant Haze get a lot of things right on this assured debut. The songwriting is deceptively diverse and punchy, bolstered by solid production, tight musicianship, and the swaggering, ever so slightly goofy vocal charms and powerful hooks of frontman Christoph Wollmann. Inevitably, a few rough spots appear, but overall Cosmic Mother showcases oodles of budding potential, an impactful delivery, cheeky sense of humor, and infectious, feel-good songcraft.
Spicie Forrest’s Foraged Fruit
Bask // The Turning [August 22nd, 2025 – Season of Mist]
Last seen in 2019, Bask returns with fourth LP, The Turning, a concept album following The Rider as she and The Traveler traverse the stars. They still peddle the unique blend of stoner rock and Americana Kenstrosity reviewed favorably in 2019, but 2025 sees them looking up for inspiration. The Turning incorporates a distinct cosmic bent (“The Traveler,” “The Turning”) and post-rock structures (“Dig My Heels,” “Unwound”). These augmentations to Bask’s core sound are enhanced by the masterful pedal steel of new official member Jed Willis. Whether floating through the firmament or tilling earthly pastures, Willis creates textures both fresh and intensely nostalgic. The infinite shifting vistas of The Turning’s front half coalesce into singular timeless visions on the back half, supporting its conceptual nature in both content and form. Like a combination of Huntsmen and Somali Yacht Club, Bask weaves riffs and melodies heard across the plains and through the void above with an unguarded authenticity felt in your soul.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Disseminating Discharge
Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell [August 1st, 2025 – Personal Records]
Stinky, sticky, slimy—all adjectives that define the ideal death metal platter. Myk Colby has been trying to chase this perfect balance in a reverb-wonky package with projects like the d-beaten Hot Graves and extra hazy Wharflurch, but vile death metal balance is hard to achieve. However, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell contains a recklessly pinched Demilichian riffage, classic piercing whammy bombs, and spook-minded synth ambience that places Plasmodulated with an odor more pungent than its peers. With an infected ear that festers equally with doom-loaded, Incantation-indebted drags (“Gelatinous Mutation ov Brewed Origin,” “Trapped in the Plasmovoid”) and Voivod-on-jenkem cutaways to foul-throated extravagence (“The Final Fuckening”). An air of intelligent tempo design keeps An Ocean from never feeling trapped in a maze of its own fumes, with Colby’s lush and bubbling synth design seguing tumbles into hammering deathly tremolo runs (“Such Rapid Sphacelation”) and Celtic Frosted riff tumbles (“Drowning in Sputum”) alike, all before swirling about his own tattered, trailing vocal sputters. Steady but slippery, elegant yet effluvial, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell provides the necessary noxious pressure to corrode death metal-loving denizens into pure gloops of stained-denim pit worship. Delivered as labeled, Plasmodulated earns its hazardous declaration. We here at AMG are not liable for any OSHA violations that occur as a result of Plasmodulated consumption on the job, though.
#2025 #Aeternus #AmericanMetal #Americana #AnOceanOvPutridStinkyVileDisgustingHell #Aug25 #Bask #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BurningWitches #CelestialTwilightBeyondTheCrimsonVeil #CelticFrost #Clutch #CosmicMother #CrimsonDawn #Danzig #DarkAmbient #DeathMetal #Deathhammer #DefLeppard #Defacement #Demilich #DigitalPlague #Doomed #DryDrunk #DutchMetal #EdgedCircleProductions #Emperor #Enslaved #Fellship #FinnishMetal #FrozenCrown #FuManchu #GermanMetal #GiantHaze #Glassing #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #Hellbutcher #HellsHeadbangersRecords #HotGraves #Huntsmen #Incantation #Inquisition #IronMaiden #JudasPriest #Kallias #Kraków #Kyuss #MelodicBlackMetal #Meshuggah #MoonlightSorcery #MorbidAngel #Motörhead #NapalmRecords #NorwegianMetal #OldNick #PersonalRecords #PhantomFire #Plasmodulated #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SilentMillenia #Slayer #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SomaliYachtClub #SpeedMetal #StonerRock #Stormkeep #StreetSects #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #SwissMetal #SymphonicBlackMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheTurning #TonzonenRecords #Turian #Voivod #Voyager #Wharflurch
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Stuck in the Filter: August 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists, but now the humidity comes in full force as storm systems wreak havoc upon the coasts. I hide in my cramped closet of an office, lest I be washed out once again by an unsuspecting deluge. However, I still send my minions out into the facility, bound by duty to search for those metallic scraps on which we feast.
Fortuitously, most all of those imps I sent out came back alive, and with wares! BEHOLD!
Kenstrosity’s Galactic Gremlin
Silent Millenia // Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil [August 26th, 2025 – Self-Release]
Have you ever seen such a delightfully cheesy cover? Probably, but it’s been a while for me. I bought Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil, the second raw symphonic black metal opus from Finnish one-man act Silent Millenia, on the strength of the artwork alone. Little did I know that what lay beyond this crimson veil was some of the most fun melodic black metal this side of Moonlight Sorcery. The same low-fi roughness that personifies Old Nick’s work grounds Silent Millenia’s starbound songwriting as it traverses the universe with an energetic punch reminiscent of Emperor or Stormkeep (“Awaken the Celestial Spell,” “Daemonic Mastery”). To help differentiate Silent Millenia’s sound from that of their peers, a gothic atmosphere ensorcells much of this material to great effect, merging eerie Victorian melodies with galactic adventurism in an unlikely pair (“Enthrone the Spectral”). Swirling synths and sparkling twinkles abound as well, creating blissful moments of interest as frosty tremolos and piercing blasts take full advantage of the false sense of security those entrancing clouds of synthetic instrumentation create (“Benighted Path to Darkness Mysterium,” “Reign in Cosmic Majesty”). Simply put, Celestial Twilight is an unexpected gem of a symphonic black metal record, bursting with killer ideas and infinite levels of raw, unabashed fun. You should hear it!
Kronos’ Unexpected Unearthments
Street Sects // Dry Drunk [August 15th, 2025 – Self Release]
Dry Drunk sticks to your inner surfaces, draining down like cigarette tar along paralyzed cilia to pool in your lungs until the cells themselves foment rebellion. Once it’s in you, you feel paranoid, wretched, and alone. So it’s the proper follow-up to Street Sects’ visionary debut, End Position. Like that record, Dry Drunk plumbs the most mundane and unsavory gutters of America for a cast of protagonists that it dwells in or dispatches with a mixture of pity and disgust, with vocalist Leo Ashline narrating their violent crimes and self-hatred in a mixture of croons, shrieks, and snarls that cook the air before the speakers into the scent of booze and rotten teeth. And like that record, Shaun Ringsmuth (Glassing) dresses the sets with a fractal litter of snaps, squeals, crashes, gunshots, and grinding electronics, caked in tar and collapsing just as soon as it is swept into a structure. And like End Position, Dry Drunk is a masterpiece. The impeccable six-song stretch from “Love Makes You Fat” through “Riding the Clock” ties you to the bumper and drags you along some of the duo’s most creative side-roads, through the simmering, straightjacketed sludge of “Baker Act” to the chopped-up, smirking electronica of “Eject Button.” Swerving between addled, unintelligible agony and unforgettable anthems, Dry Drunk, like End Position before it is nothing less than the life of a junkie scraped together, heated on a spoon, and injected into your head. Once you’ve taken a hit, you will never be quite the same.
Thus Spoke’s Frightening Fragments
Defacement // Doomed [August 22nd, 2025 – Self Release]
There’s music for every vibe.1 The one Defacement fits is an exclusively extreme metal flavor of moody that is only appreciable by genre fans, made tangibly more eerie by their persistent idiosyncratic use of dark ambient interludes amidst the viciously distorted blackened death. Audiences—and reviewers—tend to disparage these electronic segments, but I’ve always felt their crackling presence increases the analog horror of it all, and rather than being a breather from the intensity, they prolong the nausea, the sense of emptiness, and the abject fearfulness of head-based trauma. This latter concept grows more metaphorical still on Doomed, where the violence is inside the mind, purpose-erasing, and emotionally-detaching. The ambience might be the most sadly beautiful so far (“Mournful,” and “Clouded” especially), and the transitions into nightmarish heaviness arguably the most fluid. And the metal is undoubtedly the most ambitious, dynamic, and magnificent of Defacement’s career, combining their most gruesome dissonance (“Portrait”) with their most bizarrely exuberant guitar melodies (“Unexplainable,” “Unrecognised”). Solos drip tangibly with (emotional) resonance (“Unexplainable,” “Absent”) and there’s not a breath or a moment of wasted space. Yes, the band’s heavier side can suffer from a nagging sense of homogeneous mass, but it remains transporting. While I can appreciate why others do not appreciate Defacement, this is the first of their outings I can truthfully say mesmerised me on first listen.
ClarkKent’s Heated Hymns
Phantom Fire // Phantom Fire [August 8th, 2025 – Edged Circle Productions]
While I waded through the murky depths of the August promo sump, Steel implored me to take the eponymous third album from Phantom Fire. “The AMG commentariat love blackened heavy metal,” he said. I disregarded his advice at my peril, and while I ended up enjoying what I grabbed, it turns out this would have been solid too. Featuring members from Enslaved, Kraków. Hellbutcher, and Aeternus, Phantom Fire play old school speed metal that harks back to the likes of Motörhead and Iron Maiden’s Killers. Thanks to healthy doses of bass and production values that allow the instruments to shine, each song is infused with energetic grooves. The music sounds fresh, crisp, and clear, from the booming drums to Eld’s “blackened” snarls. Early tracks “Eternal Void” and “All For None” show off the catchy blend of simple guitar riffs and a hoppin’ bass accompanied by energetic kit work. While placing a somewhat lengthy instrumental track in the middle of a record usually slows it down, “Fatal Attraction” turns out to be a highlight. It tells a tragic love story involving a motorcycle with nothing but instruments, an engine revving, and some police sirens. The second half of Phantom Fire gets a bit on the weirder side, turning to some stoner and psychedelia. There’s a push and pull between the stoner and Motörhead speed stuff on songs like “Malphas” and “Submersible Pt. 2,” and this blend actually works pretty well. It turns out that they aren’t phantom after all—these guys are truly fire.
Burning Witches // Inquisition [August 22nd, 2025 – Napalm Records]
With six albums in eight years, Swiss quintet Burning Witches has really been burning rubber. While such prolific output in such a short time frame generally spells trouble, Inquisition is a solid piece of heavy/power metal. Burning Witches dabbles in a mix of speedy power metal and mid-tempo heavy metal, often sounding like ’80s stalwarts Judas Priest and Def Leppard. With Laura Guldemond’s gruff voice, they produce a more weighty, less happy version of power metal than the likes of Fellowship or Frozen Crown. While the songs stick to formulaic structures, tempo shifts from song to song help keep things from growing stale. We see this variety right from the get-go, where “Soul Eater” takes a high-energy approach before moving into the more mellow “Shame.” There’s even a pretty solid ballad, “Release Me,” that grounds the back half of the record. Songs of the sort that Burning Witches write need catchy choruses, and fortunately, they deliver. “High Priestess of the Night” is a particular standout, delivering a knock-out punch in its delivery. It helps that the instrumental parts are well-executed, from crunchy riffs to subdued solos to booming blast beats. Anyone looking for a solid bit of power metal that’s not too heavy on the cheese will find this worth a listen.
Deathhammer // Crimson Dawn [August 29th, 2025 – Hells Headbangers Records]
Celebrating 20 years of blackened speed, Deathhammer drop LP number six with the kind of energy that exhausted parents dread to see in their children at bedtime. This is my first foray with the band, and I am in awe of the relentless level of manic energy they keep throughout Crimson Dawn’s 39 minutes. If science could learn how to harness their energy, we’d have an endless source of renewables. The two-piece out of Norway channels classic Slayer on crack and even has moments reminiscent of Painkiller-era Judas Priest. They play non-stop thrash cranked to 11, with persistent blast beats and some dual guitar parts that leave your head spinning from the rapid-fire directions the riffs fire off in. The heart of the mania is singer Sergeant Salsten. His crazed vocals are amazing—snarling, shouting, and shrieking in a way that took me back to the manic pitch Judge Doom could reach in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He sings so fast that on the chorus of “Crimson Dawn,” it sounds like he says “Griffindor,” which had me searching confusedly for the Harry Potter tag. This was probably my favorite song, not just because of the Griffindor thing, but because that chorus is so catchy. Either way, it’s tough to pick a standout track because they all grip you by the throat and don’t let go. Crimson Dawn is a ton of fun and a must listen if you like your music fast.
Grin Reaper’s Bountiful Blight
Kallias // Digital Plague [August 14th, 2025 – Self Release]
Machine gun drumming, spacey synths, Morbid Angel-meets-Meshuggah riffing, Turian-esque barking and Voyager-reminiscent vocal melodies…what the fuck is going on here? The only thing more surprising than someone having the moxie to blend all these things together is how well they work in concert. Kallias doesn’t hold back on sophomore album Digital Plague, and the result is a rocket-fueled blast through forty-four minutes of eclectic, addictive prog. The mishmash of styles keeps the album fresh and unpredictable while never dipping its toes in inconsistent waters, and staccato rhythms propel listeners through eight tracks without losing steam. As with any prog metal worth its salt, Kallias brandishes technical prowess, and their cohesion belies the relatively short time they’ve been putting out music.2 The mix is well-suited to spotlight whoever needs it at a given time, whether the bass is purring (“Exogíini Kyriarchía”), the drums are being annihilated (“Pyrrhic Victory”), or a guitar solo nears Pettrucian wankery (“Phenomenal in Theory”). The end result is three-quarters of an hour filled with myriad influences that fuse into a sound all Kallias’s own, and it’s one I’ve returned to several times since discovering (also, credit to MontDoom for his stunning artwork, which helped initially draw my attention). Check it out—you’ll be sick if you avoid this one like the Plague.
Luke’s Kaleidoscopic Kicks
Giant Haze // Cosmic Mother [August 22nd, 2025 – Tonzonen Records]
Whereas many of my colleagues are bracing themselves for cooler conditions and harsh winters to come, in my neck of the woods, things are warming up. While my own wintry August filter proved scarce, there was one particular summery gem to lift moods with burly riffs and fat stoner grooves. Unheralded German act Giant Haze seemingly emerged out of nowhere during a random Bandcamp deep dive. Debut LP Cosmic Mother channels the good old days of ’90s-inspired desert rock, featuring grungy, doomy vibes via a groovy batch of riff-centric, hard-rocking and uplifting jams, evoking the nostalgic spirit of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch and perhaps even a dash of Danzig. Punching out raucous, groove-soaked hard rockers with skyscraping hooks (“Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King of Tomorrow,” “Panic to Ride”), summery, funk–psych jams (“Sunrise”), and bluesy, punk-infused fireballs (“Crank in Public,” “Shrink Age”) Giant Haze get a lot of things right on this assured debut. The songwriting is deceptively diverse and punchy, bolstered by solid production, tight musicianship, and the swaggering, ever so slightly goofy vocal charms and powerful hooks of frontman Christoph Wollmann. Inevitably, a few rough spots appear, but overall Cosmic Mother showcases oodles of budding potential, an impactful delivery, cheeky sense of humor, and infectious, feel-good songcraft.
Spicie Forrest’s Foraged Fruit
Bask // The Turning [August 22nd, 2025 – Season of Mist]
Last seen in 2019, Bask returns with fourth LP, The Turning, a concept album following The Rider as she and The Traveler traverse the stars. They still peddle the unique blend of stoner rock and Americana Kenstrosity reviewed favorably in 2019, but 2025 sees them looking up for inspiration. The Turning incorporates a distinct cosmic bent (“The Traveler,” “The Turning”) and post-rock structures (“Dig My Heels,” “Unwound”). These augmentations to Bask’s core sound are enhanced by the masterful pedal steel of new official member Jed Willis. Whether floating through the firmament or tilling earthly pastures, Willis creates textures both fresh and intensely nostalgic. The infinite shifting vistas of The Turning’s front half coalesce into singular timeless visions on the back half, supporting its conceptual nature in both content and form. Like a combination of Huntsmen and Somali Yacht Club, Bask weaves riffs and melodies heard across the plains and through the void above with an unguarded authenticity felt in your soul.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Disseminating Discharge
Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell [August 1st, 2025 – Personal Records]
Stinky, sticky, slimy—all adjectives that define the ideal death metal platter. Myk Colby has been trying to chase this perfect balance in a reverb-wonky package with projects like the d-beaten Hot Graves and extra hazy Wharflurch, but vile death metal balance is hard to achieve. However, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell contains a recklessly pinched Demilichian riffage, classic piercing whammy bombs, and spook-minded synth ambience that places Plasmodulated with an odor more pungent than its peers. With an infected ear that festers equally with doom-loaded, Incantation-indebted drags (“Gelatinous Mutation ov Brewed Origin,” “Trapped in the Plasmovoid”) and Voivod-on-jenkem cutaways to foul-throated extravagence (“The Final Fuckening”). An air of intelligent tempo design keeps An Ocean from never feeling trapped in a maze of its own fumes, with Colby’s lush and bubbling synth design seguing tumbles into hammering deathly tremolo runs (“Such Rapid Sphacelation”) and Celtic Frosted riff tumbles (“Drowning in Sputum”) alike, all before swirling about his own tattered, trailing vocal sputters. Steady but slippery, elegant yet effluvial, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell provides the necessary noxious pressure to corrode death metal-loving denizens into pure gloops of stained-denim pit worship. Delivered as labeled, Plasmodulated earns its hazardous declaration. We here at AMG are not liable for any OSHA violations that occur as a result of Plasmodulated consumption on the job, though.
#2025 #Aeternus #AmericanMetal #Americana #AnOceanOvPutridStinkyVileDisgustingHell #Aug25 #Bask #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BurningWitches #CelestialTwilightBeyondTheCrimsonVeil #CelticFrost #Clutch #CosmicMother #CrimsonDawn #Danzig #DarkAmbient #DeathMetal #Deathhammer #DefLeppard #Defacement #Demilich #DigitalPlague #Doomed #DryDrunk #DutchMetal #EdgedCircleProductions #Emperor #Enslaved #Fellship #FinnishMetal #FrozenCrown #FuManchu #GermanMetal #GiantHaze #Glassing #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #Hellbutcher #HellsHeadbangersRecords #HotGraves #Huntsmen #Incantation #Inquisition #IronMaiden #JudasPriest #Kallias #Kraków #Kyuss #MelodicBlackMetal #Meshuggah #MoonlightSorcery #MorbidAngel #Motörhead #NapalmRecords #NorwegianMetal #OldNick #PersonalRecords #PhantomFire #Plasmodulated #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SilentMillenia #Slayer #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SomaliYachtClub #SpeedMetal #StonerRock #Stormkeep #StreetSects #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #SwissMetal #SymphonicBlackMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheTurning #TonzonenRecords #Turian #Voivod #Voyager #Wharflurch
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Stuck in the Filter: August 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists, but now the humidity comes in full force as storm systems wreak havoc upon the coasts. I hide in my cramped closet of an office, lest I be washed out once again by an unsuspecting deluge. However, I still send my minions out into the facility, bound by duty to search for those metallic scraps on which we feast.
Fortuitously, most all of those imps I sent out came back alive, and with wares! BEHOLD!
Kenstrosity’s Galactic Gremlin
Silent Millenia // Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil [August 26th, 2025 – Self-Release]
Have you ever seen such a delightfully cheesy cover? Probably, but it’s been a while for me. I bought Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil, the second raw symphonic black metal opus from Finnish one-man act Silent Millenia, on the strength of the artwork alone. Little did I know that what lay beyond this crimson veil was some of the most fun melodic black metal this side of Moonlight Sorcery. The same low-fi roughness that personifies Old Nick’s work grounds Silent Millenia’s starbound songwriting as it traverses the universe with an energetic punch reminiscent of Emperor or Stormkeep (“Awaken the Celestial Spell,” “Daemonic Mastery”). To help differentiate Silent Millenia’s sound from that of their peers, a gothic atmosphere ensorcells much of this material to great effect, merging eerie Victorian melodies with galactic adventurism in an unlikely pair (“Enthrone the Spectral”). Swirling synths and sparkling twinkles abound as well, creating blissful moments of interest as frosty tremolos and piercing blasts take full advantage of the false sense of security those entrancing clouds of synthetic instrumentation create (“Benighted Path to Darkness Mysterium,” “Reign in Cosmic Majesty”). Simply put, Celestial Twilight is an unexpected gem of a symphonic black metal record, bursting with killer ideas and infinite levels of raw, unabashed fun. You should hear it!
Kronos’ Unexpected Unearthments
Street Sects // Dry Drunk [August 15th, 2025 – Self Release]
Dry Drunk sticks to your inner surfaces, draining down like cigarette tar along paralyzed cilia to pool in your lungs until the cells themselves foment rebellion. Once it’s in you, you feel paranoid, wretched, and alone. So it’s the proper follow-up to Street Sects’ visionary debut, End Position. Like that record, Dry Drunk plumbs the most mundane and unsavory gutters of America for a cast of protagonists that it dwells in or dispatches with a mixture of pity and disgust, with vocalist Leo Ashline narrating their violent crimes and self-hatred in a mixture of croons, shrieks, and snarls that cook the air before the speakers into the scent of booze and rotten teeth. And like that record, Shaun Ringsmuth (Glassing) dresses the sets with a fractal litter of snaps, squeals, crashes, gunshots, and grinding electronics, caked in tar and collapsing just as soon as it is swept into a structure. And like End Position, Dry Drunk is a masterpiece. The impeccable six-song stretch from “Love Makes You Fat” through “Riding the Clock” ties you to the bumper and drags you along some of the duo’s most creative side-roads, through the simmering, straightjacketed sludge of “Baker Act” to the chopped-up, smirking electronica of “Eject Button.” Swerving between addled, unintelligible agony and unforgettable anthems, Dry Drunk, like End Position before it is nothing less than the life of a junkie scraped together, heated on a spoon, and injected into your head. Once you’ve taken a hit, you will never be quite the same.
Thus Spoke’s Frightening Fragments
Defacement // Doomed [August 22nd, 2025 – Self Release]
There’s music for every vibe.1 The one Defacement fits is an exclusively extreme metal flavor of moody that is only appreciable by genre fans, made tangibly more eerie by their persistent idiosyncratic use of dark ambient interludes amidst the viciously distorted blackened death. Audiences—and reviewers—tend to disparage these electronic segments, but I’ve always felt their crackling presence increases the analog horror of it all, and rather than being a breather from the intensity, they prolong the nausea, the sense of emptiness, and the abject fearfulness of head-based trauma. This latter concept grows more metaphorical still on Doomed, where the violence is inside the mind, purpose-erasing, and emotionally-detaching. The ambience might be the most sadly beautiful so far (“Mournful,” and “Clouded” especially), and the transitions into nightmarish heaviness arguably the most fluid. And the metal is undoubtedly the most ambitious, dynamic, and magnificent of Defacement’s career, combining their most gruesome dissonance (“Portrait”) with their most bizarrely exuberant guitar melodies (“Unexplainable,” “Unrecognised”). Solos drip tangibly with (emotional) resonance (“Unexplainable,” “Absent”) and there’s not a breath or a moment of wasted space. Yes, the band’s heavier side can suffer from a nagging sense of homogeneous mass, but it remains transporting. While I can appreciate why others do not appreciate Defacement, this is the first of their outings I can truthfully say mesmerised me on first listen.
ClarkKent’s Heated Hymns
Phantom Fire // Phantom Fire [August 8th, 2025 – Edged Circle Productions]
While I waded through the murky depths of the August promo sump, Steel implored me to take the eponymous third album from Phantom Fire. “The AMG commentariat love blackened heavy metal,” he said. I disregarded his advice at my peril, and while I ended up enjoying what I grabbed, it turns out this would have been solid too. Featuring members from Enslaved, Kraków. Hellbutcher, and Aeternus, Phantom Fire play old school speed metal that harks back to the likes of Motörhead and Iron Maiden’s Killers. Thanks to healthy doses of bass and production values that allow the instruments to shine, each song is infused with energetic grooves. The music sounds fresh, crisp, and clear, from the booming drums to Eld’s “blackened” snarls. Early tracks “Eternal Void” and “All For None” show off the catchy blend of simple guitar riffs and a hoppin’ bass accompanied by energetic kit work. While placing a somewhat lengthy instrumental track in the middle of a record usually slows it down, “Fatal Attraction” turns out to be a highlight. It tells a tragic love story involving a motorcycle with nothing but instruments, an engine revving, and some police sirens. The second half of Phantom Fire gets a bit on the weirder side, turning to some stoner and psychedelia. There’s a push and pull between the stoner and Motörhead speed stuff on songs like “Malphas” and “Submersible Pt. 2,” and this blend actually works pretty well. It turns out that they aren’t phantom after all—these guys are truly fire.
Burning Witches // Inquisition [August 22nd, 2025 – Napalm Records]
With six albums in eight years, Swiss quintet Burning Witches has really been burning rubber. While such prolific output in such a short time frame generally spells trouble, Inquisition is a solid piece of heavy/power metal. Burning Witches dabbles in a mix of speedy power metal and mid-tempo heavy metal, often sounding like ’80s stalwarts Judas Priest and Def Leppard. With Laura Guldemond’s gruff voice, they produce a more weighty, less happy version of power metal than the likes of Fellowship or Frozen Crown. While the songs stick to formulaic structures, tempo shifts from song to song help keep things from growing stale. We see this variety right from the get-go, where “Soul Eater” takes a high-energy approach before moving into the more mellow “Shame.” There’s even a pretty solid ballad, “Release Me,” that grounds the back half of the record. Songs of the sort that Burning Witches write need catchy choruses, and fortunately, they deliver. “High Priestess of the Night” is a particular standout, delivering a knock-out punch in its delivery. It helps that the instrumental parts are well-executed, from crunchy riffs to subdued solos to booming blast beats. Anyone looking for a solid bit of power metal that’s not too heavy on the cheese will find this worth a listen.
Deathhammer // Crimson Dawn [August 29th, 2025 – Hells Headbangers Records]
Celebrating 20 years of blackened speed, Deathhammer drop LP number six with the kind of energy that exhausted parents dread to see in their children at bedtime. This is my first foray with the band, and I am in awe of the relentless level of manic energy they keep throughout Crimson Dawn’s 39 minutes. If science could learn how to harness their energy, we’d have an endless source of renewables. The two-piece out of Norway channels classic Slayer on crack and even has moments reminiscent of Painkiller-era Judas Priest. They play non-stop thrash cranked to 11, with persistent blast beats and some dual guitar parts that leave your head spinning from the rapid-fire directions the riffs fire off in. The heart of the mania is singer Sergeant Salsten. His crazed vocals are amazing—snarling, shouting, and shrieking in a way that took me back to the manic pitch Judge Doom could reach in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He sings so fast that on the chorus of “Crimson Dawn,” it sounds like he says “Griffindor,” which had me searching confusedly for the Harry Potter tag. This was probably my favorite song, not just because of the Griffindor thing, but because that chorus is so catchy. Either way, it’s tough to pick a standout track because they all grip you by the throat and don’t let go. Crimson Dawn is a ton of fun and a must listen if you like your music fast.
Grin Reaper’s Bountiful Blight
Kallias // Digital Plague [August 14th, 2025 – Self Release]
Machine gun drumming, spacey synths, Morbid Angel-meets-Meshuggah riffing, Turian-esque barking and Voyager-reminiscent vocal melodies…what the fuck is going on here? The only thing more surprising than someone having the moxie to blend all these things together is how well they work in concert. Kallias doesn’t hold back on sophomore album Digital Plague, and the result is a rocket-fueled blast through forty-four minutes of eclectic, addictive prog. The mishmash of styles keeps the album fresh and unpredictable while never dipping its toes in inconsistent waters, and staccato rhythms propel listeners through eight tracks without losing steam. As with any prog metal worth its salt, Kallias brandishes technical prowess, and their cohesion belies the relatively short time they’ve been putting out music.2 The mix is well-suited to spotlight whoever needs it at a given time, whether the bass is purring (“Exogíini Kyriarchía”), the drums are being annihilated (“Pyrrhic Victory”), or a guitar solo nears Pettrucian wankery (“Phenomenal in Theory”). The end result is three-quarters of an hour filled with myriad influences that fuse into a sound all Kallias’s own, and it’s one I’ve returned to several times since discovering (also, credit to MontDoom for his stunning artwork, which helped initially draw my attention). Check it out—you’ll be sick if you avoid this one like the Plague.
Luke’s Kaleidoscopic Kicks
Giant Haze // Cosmic Mother [August 22nd, 2025 – Tonzonen Records]
Whereas many of my colleagues are bracing themselves for cooler conditions and harsh winters to come, in my neck of the woods, things are warming up. While my own wintry August filter proved scarce, there was one particular summery gem to lift moods with burly riffs and fat stoner grooves. Unheralded German act Giant Haze seemingly emerged out of nowhere during a random Bandcamp deep dive. Debut LP Cosmic Mother channels the good old days of ’90s-inspired desert rock, featuring grungy, doomy vibes via a groovy batch of riff-centric, hard-rocking and uplifting jams, evoking the nostalgic spirit of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch and perhaps even a dash of Danzig. Punching out raucous, groove-soaked hard rockers with skyscraping hooks (“Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King of Tomorrow,” “Panic to Ride”), summery, funk–psych jams (“Sunrise”), and bluesy, punk-infused fireballs (“Crank in Public,” “Shrink Age”) Giant Haze get a lot of things right on this assured debut. The songwriting is deceptively diverse and punchy, bolstered by solid production, tight musicianship, and the swaggering, ever so slightly goofy vocal charms and powerful hooks of frontman Christoph Wollmann. Inevitably, a few rough spots appear, but overall Cosmic Mother showcases oodles of budding potential, an impactful delivery, cheeky sense of humor, and infectious, feel-good songcraft.
Spicie Forrest’s Foraged Fruit
Bask // The Turning [August 22nd, 2025 – Season of Mist]
Last seen in 2019, Bask returns with fourth LP, The Turning, a concept album following The Rider as she and The Traveler traverse the stars. They still peddle the unique blend of stoner rock and Americana Kenstrosity reviewed favorably in 2019, but 2025 sees them looking up for inspiration. The Turning incorporates a distinct cosmic bent (“The Traveler,” “The Turning”) and post-rock structures (“Dig My Heels,” “Unwound”). These augmentations to Bask’s core sound are enhanced by the masterful pedal steel of new official member Jed Willis. Whether floating through the firmament or tilling earthly pastures, Willis creates textures both fresh and intensely nostalgic. The infinite shifting vistas of The Turning’s front half coalesce into singular timeless visions on the back half, supporting its conceptual nature in both content and form. Like a combination of Huntsmen and Somali Yacht Club, Bask weaves riffs and melodies heard across the plains and through the void above with an unguarded authenticity felt in your soul.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Disseminating Discharge
Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell [August 1st, 2025 – Personal Records]
Stinky, sticky, slimy—all adjectives that define the ideal death metal platter. Myk Colby has been trying to chase this perfect balance in a reverb-wonky package with projects like the d-beaten Hot Graves and extra hazy Wharflurch, but vile death metal balance is hard to achieve. However, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell contains a recklessly pinched Demilichian riffage, classic piercing whammy bombs, and spook-minded synth ambience that places Plasmodulated with an odor more pungent than its peers. With an infected ear that festers equally with doom-loaded, Incantation-indebted drags (“Gelatinous Mutation ov Brewed Origin,” “Trapped in the Plasmovoid”) and Voivod-on-jenkem cutaways to foul-throated extravagence (“The Final Fuckening”). An air of intelligent tempo design keeps An Ocean from never feeling trapped in a maze of its own fumes, with Colby’s lush and bubbling synth design seguing tumbles into hammering deathly tremolo runs (“Such Rapid Sphacelation”) and Celtic Frosted riff tumbles (“Drowning in Sputum”) alike, all before swirling about his own tattered, trailing vocal sputters. Steady but slippery, elegant yet effluvial, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell provides the necessary noxious pressure to corrode death metal-loving denizens into pure gloops of stained-denim pit worship. Delivered as labeled, Plasmodulated earns its hazardous declaration. We here at AMG are not liable for any OSHA violations that occur as a result of Plasmodulated consumption on the job, though.
#2025 #Aeternus #AmericanMetal #Americana #AnOceanOvPutridStinkyVileDisgustingHell #Aug25 #Bask #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BurningWitches #CelestialTwilightBeyondTheCrimsonVeil #CelticFrost #Clutch #CosmicMother #CrimsonDawn #Danzig #DarkAmbient #DeathMetal #Deathhammer #DefLeppard #Defacement #Demilich #DigitalPlague #Doomed #DryDrunk #DutchMetal #EdgedCircleProductions #Emperor #Enslaved #Fellship #FinnishMetal #FrozenCrown #FuManchu #GermanMetal #GiantHaze #Glassing #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #Hellbutcher #HellsHeadbangersRecords #HotGraves #Huntsmen #Incantation #Inquisition #IronMaiden #JudasPriest #Kallias #Kraków #Kyuss #MelodicBlackMetal #Meshuggah #MoonlightSorcery #MorbidAngel #Motörhead #NapalmRecords #NorwegianMetal #OldNick #PersonalRecords #PhantomFire #Plasmodulated #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SilentMillenia #Slayer #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SomaliYachtClub #SpeedMetal #StonerRock #Stormkeep #StreetSects #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #SwissMetal #SymphonicBlackMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheTurning #TonzonenRecords #Turian #Voivod #Voyager #Wharflurch
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Stuck in the Filter: August 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists, but now the humidity comes in full force as storm systems wreak havoc upon the coasts. I hide in my cramped closet of an office, lest I be washed out once again by an unsuspecting deluge. However, I still send my minions out into the facility, bound by duty to search for those metallic scraps on which we feast.
Fortuitously, most all of those imps I sent out came back alive, and with wares! BEHOLD!
Kenstrosity’s Galactic Gremlin
Silent Millenia // Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil [August 26th, 2025 – Self-Release]
Have you ever seen such a delightfully cheesy cover? Probably, but it’s been a while for me. I bought Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil, the second raw symphonic black metal opus from Finnish one-man act Silent Millenia, on the strength of the artwork alone. Little did I know that what lay beyond this crimson veil was some of the most fun melodic black metal this side of Moonlight Sorcery. The same low-fi roughness that personifies Old Nick’s work grounds Silent Millenia’s starbound songwriting as it traverses the universe with an energetic punch reminiscent of Emperor or Stormkeep (“Awaken the Celestial Spell,” “Daemonic Mastery”). To help differentiate Silent Millenia’s sound from that of their peers, a gothic atmosphere ensorcells much of this material to great effect, merging eerie Victorian melodies with galactic adventurism in an unlikely pair (“Enthrone the Spectral”). Swirling synths and sparkling twinkles abound as well, creating blissful moments of interest as frosty tremolos and piercing blasts take full advantage of the false sense of security those entrancing clouds of synthetic instrumentation create (“Benighted Path to Darkness Mysterium,” “Reign in Cosmic Majesty”). Simply put, Celestial Twilight is an unexpected gem of a symphonic black metal record, bursting with killer ideas and infinite levels of raw, unabashed fun. You should hear it!
Kronos’ Unexpected Unearthments
Street Sects // Dry Drunk [August 15th, 2025 – Self Release]
Dry Drunk sticks to your inner surfaces, draining down like cigarette tar along paralyzed cilia to pool in your lungs until the cells themselves foment rebellion. Once it’s in you, you feel paranoid, wretched, and alone. So it’s the proper follow-up to Street Sects’ visionary debut, End Position. Like that record, Dry Drunk plumbs the most mundane and unsavory gutters of America for a cast of protagonists that it dwells in or dispatches with a mixture of pity and disgust, with vocalist Leo Ashline narrating their violent crimes and self-hatred in a mixture of croons, shrieks, and snarls that cook the air before the speakers into the scent of booze and rotten teeth. And like that record, Shaun Ringsmuth (Glassing) dresses the sets with a fractal litter of snaps, squeals, crashes, gunshots, and grinding electronics, caked in tar and collapsing just as soon as it is swept into a structure. And like End Position, Dry Drunk is a masterpiece. The impeccable six-song stretch from “Love Makes You Fat” through “Riding the Clock” ties you to the bumper and drags you along some of the duo’s most creative side-roads, through the simmering, straightjacketed sludge of “Baker Act” to the chopped-up, smirking electronica of “Eject Button.” Swerving between addled, unintelligible agony and unforgettable anthems, Dry Drunk, like End Position before it is nothing less than the life of a junkie scraped together, heated on a spoon, and injected into your head. Once you’ve taken a hit, you will never be quite the same.
Thus Spoke’s Frightening Fragments
Defacement // Doomed [August 22nd, 2025 – Self Release]
There’s music for every vibe.1 The one Defacement fits is an exclusively extreme metal flavor of moody that is only appreciable by genre fans, made tangibly more eerie by their persistent idiosyncratic use of dark ambient interludes amidst the viciously distorted blackened death. Audiences—and reviewers—tend to disparage these electronic segments, but I’ve always felt their crackling presence increases the analog horror of it all, and rather than being a breather from the intensity, they prolong the nausea, the sense of emptiness, and the abject fearfulness of head-based trauma. This latter concept grows more metaphorical still on Doomed, where the violence is inside the mind, purpose-erasing, and emotionally-detaching. The ambience might be the most sadly beautiful so far (“Mournful,” and “Clouded” especially), and the transitions into nightmarish heaviness arguably the most fluid. And the metal is undoubtedly the most ambitious, dynamic, and magnificent of Defacement’s career, combining their most gruesome dissonance (“Portrait”) with their most bizarrely exuberant guitar melodies (“Unexplainable,” “Unrecognised”). Solos drip tangibly with (emotional) resonance (“Unexplainable,” “Absent”) and there’s not a breath or a moment of wasted space. Yes, the band’s heavier side can suffer from a nagging sense of homogeneous mass, but it remains transporting. While I can appreciate why others do not appreciate Defacement, this is the first of their outings I can truthfully say mesmerised me on first listen.
ClarkKent’s Heated Hymns
Phantom Fire // Phantom Fire [August 8th, 2025 – Edged Circle Productions]
While I waded through the murky depths of the August promo sump, Steel implored me to take the eponymous third album from Phantom Fire. “The AMG commentariat love blackened heavy metal,” he said. I disregarded his advice at my peril, and while I ended up enjoying what I grabbed, it turns out this would have been solid too. Featuring members from Enslaved, Kraków. Hellbutcher, and Aeternus, Phantom Fire play old school speed metal that harks back to the likes of Motörhead and Iron Maiden’s Killers. Thanks to healthy doses of bass and production values that allow the instruments to shine, each song is infused with energetic grooves. The music sounds fresh, crisp, and clear, from the booming drums to Eld’s “blackened” snarls. Early tracks “Eternal Void” and “All For None” show off the catchy blend of simple guitar riffs and a hoppin’ bass accompanied by energetic kit work. While placing a somewhat lengthy instrumental track in the middle of a record usually slows it down, “Fatal Attraction” turns out to be a highlight. It tells a tragic love story involving a motorcycle with nothing but instruments, an engine revving, and some police sirens. The second half of Phantom Fire gets a bit on the weirder side, turning to some stoner and psychedelia. There’s a push and pull between the stoner and Motörhead speed stuff on songs like “Malphas” and “Submersible Pt. 2,” and this blend actually works pretty well. It turns out that they aren’t phantom after all—these guys are truly fire.
Burning Witches // Inquisition [August 22nd, 2025 – Napalm Records]
With six albums in eight years, Swiss quintet Burning Witches has really been burning rubber. While such prolific output in such a short time frame generally spells trouble, Inquisition is a solid piece of heavy/power metal. Burning Witches dabbles in a mix of speedy power metal and mid-tempo heavy metal, often sounding like ’80s stalwarts Judas Priest and Def Leppard. With Laura Guldemond’s gruff voice, they produce a more weighty, less happy version of power metal than the likes of Fellowship or Frozen Crown. While the songs stick to formulaic structures, tempo shifts from song to song help keep things from growing stale. We see this variety right from the get-go, where “Soul Eater” takes a high-energy approach before moving into the more mellow “Shame.” There’s even a pretty solid ballad, “Release Me,” that grounds the back half of the record. Songs of the sort that Burning Witches write need catchy choruses, and fortunately, they deliver. “High Priestess of the Night” is a particular standout, delivering a knock-out punch in its delivery. It helps that the instrumental parts are well-executed, from crunchy riffs to subdued solos to booming blast beats. Anyone looking for a solid bit of power metal that’s not too heavy on the cheese will find this worth a listen.
Deathhammer // Crimson Dawn [August 29th, 2025 – Hells Headbangers Records]
Celebrating 20 years of blackened speed, Deathhammer drop LP number six with the kind of energy that exhausted parents dread to see in their children at bedtime. This is my first foray with the band, and I am in awe of the relentless level of manic energy they keep throughout Crimson Dawn’s 39 minutes. If science could learn how to harness their energy, we’d have an endless source of renewables. The two-piece out of Norway channels classic Slayer on crack and even has moments reminiscent of Painkiller-era Judas Priest. They play non-stop thrash cranked to 11, with persistent blast beats and some dual guitar parts that leave your head spinning from the rapid-fire directions the riffs fire off in. The heart of the mania is singer Sergeant Salsten. His crazed vocals are amazing—snarling, shouting, and shrieking in a way that took me back to the manic pitch Judge Doom could reach in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He sings so fast that on the chorus of “Crimson Dawn,” it sounds like he says “Griffindor,” which had me searching confusedly for the Harry Potter tag. This was probably my favorite song, not just because of the Griffindor thing, but because that chorus is so catchy. Either way, it’s tough to pick a standout track because they all grip you by the throat and don’t let go. Crimson Dawn is a ton of fun and a must listen if you like your music fast.
Grin Reaper’s Bountiful Blight
Kallias // Digital Plague [August 14th, 2025 – Self Release]
Machine gun drumming, spacey synths, Morbid Angel-meets-Meshuggah riffing, Turian-esque barking and Voyager-reminiscent vocal melodies…what the fuck is going on here? The only thing more surprising than someone having the moxie to blend all these things together is how well they work in concert. Kallias doesn’t hold back on sophomore album Digital Plague, and the result is a rocket-fueled blast through forty-four minutes of eclectic, addictive prog. The mishmash of styles keeps the album fresh and unpredictable while never dipping its toes in inconsistent waters, and staccato rhythms propel listeners through eight tracks without losing steam. As with any prog metal worth its salt, Kallias brandishes technical prowess, and their cohesion belies the relatively short time they’ve been putting out music.2 The mix is well-suited to spotlight whoever needs it at a given time, whether the bass is purring (“Exogíini Kyriarchía”), the drums are being annihilated (“Pyrrhic Victory”), or a guitar solo nears Pettrucian wankery (“Phenomenal in Theory”). The end result is three-quarters of an hour filled with myriad influences that fuse into a sound all Kallias’s own, and it’s one I’ve returned to several times since discovering (also, credit to MontDoom for his stunning artwork, which helped initially draw my attention). Check it out—you’ll be sick if you avoid this one like the Plague.
Luke’s Kaleidoscopic Kicks
Giant Haze // Cosmic Mother [August 22nd, 2025 – Tonzonen Records]
Whereas many of my colleagues are bracing themselves for cooler conditions and harsh winters to come, in my neck of the woods, things are warming up. While my own wintry August filter proved scarce, there was one particular summery gem to lift moods with burly riffs and fat stoner grooves. Unheralded German act Giant Haze seemingly emerged out of nowhere during a random Bandcamp deep dive. Debut LP Cosmic Mother channels the good old days of ’90s-inspired desert rock, featuring grungy, doomy vibes via a groovy batch of riff-centric, hard-rocking and uplifting jams, evoking the nostalgic spirit of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch and perhaps even a dash of Danzig. Punching out raucous, groove-soaked hard rockers with skyscraping hooks (“Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King of Tomorrow,” “Panic to Ride”), summery, funk–psych jams (“Sunrise”), and bluesy, punk-infused fireballs (“Crank in Public,” “Shrink Age”) Giant Haze get a lot of things right on this assured debut. The songwriting is deceptively diverse and punchy, bolstered by solid production, tight musicianship, and the swaggering, ever so slightly goofy vocal charms and powerful hooks of frontman Christoph Wollmann. Inevitably, a few rough spots appear, but overall Cosmic Mother showcases oodles of budding potential, an impactful delivery, cheeky sense of humor, and infectious, feel-good songcraft.
Spicie Forrest’s Foraged Fruit
Bask // The Turning [August 22nd, 2025 – Season of Mist]
Last seen in 2019, Bask returns with fourth LP, The Turning, a concept album following The Rider as she and The Traveler traverse the stars. They still peddle the unique blend of stoner rock and Americana Kenstrosity reviewed favorably in 2019, but 2025 sees them looking up for inspiration. The Turning incorporates a distinct cosmic bent (“The Traveler,” “The Turning”) and post-rock structures (“Dig My Heels,” “Unwound”). These augmentations to Bask’s core sound are enhanced by the masterful pedal steel of new official member Jed Willis. Whether floating through the firmament or tilling earthly pastures, Willis creates textures both fresh and intensely nostalgic. The infinite shifting vistas of The Turning’s front half coalesce into singular timeless visions on the back half, supporting its conceptual nature in both content and form. Like a combination of Huntsmen and Somali Yacht Club, Bask weaves riffs and melodies heard across the plains and through the void above with an unguarded authenticity felt in your soul.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Disseminating Discharge
Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell [August 1st, 2025 – Personal Records]
Stinky, sticky, slimy—all adjectives that define the ideal death metal platter. Myk Colby has been trying to chase this perfect balance in a reverb-wonky package with projects like the d-beaten Hot Graves and extra hazy Wharflurch, but vile death metal balance is hard to achieve. However, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell contains a recklessly pinched Demilichian riffage, classic piercing whammy bombs, and spook-minded synth ambience that places Plasmodulated with an odor more pungent than its peers. With an infected ear that festers equally with doom-loaded, Incantation-indebted drags (“Gelatinous Mutation ov Brewed Origin,” “Trapped in the Plasmovoid”) and Voivod-on-jenkem cutaways to foul-throated extravagence (“The Final Fuckening”). An air of intelligent tempo design keeps An Ocean from never feeling trapped in a maze of its own fumes, with Colby’s lush and bubbling synth design seguing tumbles into hammering deathly tremolo runs (“Such Rapid Sphacelation”) and Celtic Frosted riff tumbles (“Drowning in Sputum”) alike, all before swirling about his own tattered, trailing vocal sputters. Steady but slippery, elegant yet effluvial, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell provides the necessary noxious pressure to corrode death metal-loving denizens into pure gloops of stained-denim pit worship. Delivered as labeled, Plasmodulated earns its hazardous declaration. We here at AMG are not liable for any OSHA violations that occur as a result of Plasmodulated consumption on the job, though.
#2025 #Aeternus #AmericanMetal #Americana #AnOceanOvPutridStinkyVileDisgustingHell #Aug25 #Bask #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BurningWitches #CelestialTwilightBeyondTheCrimsonVeil #CelticFrost #Clutch #CosmicMother #CrimsonDawn #Danzig #DarkAmbient #DeathMetal #Deathhammer #DefLeppard #Defacement #Demilich #DigitalPlague #Doomed #DryDrunk #DutchMetal #EdgedCircleProductions #Emperor #Enslaved #Fellship #FinnishMetal #FrozenCrown #FuManchu #GermanMetal #GiantHaze #Glassing #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #Hellbutcher #HellsHeadbangersRecords #HotGraves #Huntsmen #Incantation #Inquisition #IronMaiden #JudasPriest #Kallias #Kraków #Kyuss #MelodicBlackMetal #Meshuggah #MoonlightSorcery #MorbidAngel #Motörhead #NapalmRecords #NorwegianMetal #OldNick #PersonalRecords #PhantomFire #Plasmodulated #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SilentMillenia #Slayer #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SomaliYachtClub #SpeedMetal #StonerRock #Stormkeep #StreetSects #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #SwissMetal #SymphonicBlackMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheTurning #TonzonenRecords #Turian #Voivod #Voyager #Wharflurch
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Stuck in the Filter: August 2025’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists, but now the humidity comes in full force as storm systems wreak havoc upon the coasts. I hide in my cramped closet of an office, lest I be washed out once again by an unsuspecting deluge. However, I still send my minions out into the facility, bound by duty to search for those metallic scraps on which we feast.
Fortuitously, most all of those imps I sent out came back alive, and with wares! BEHOLD!
Kenstrosity’s Galactic Gremlin
Silent Millenia // Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil [August 26th, 2025 – Self-Release]
Have you ever seen such a delightfully cheesy cover? Probably, but it’s been a while for me. I bought Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Crimson Veil, the second raw symphonic black metal opus from Finnish one-man act Silent Millenia, on the strength of the artwork alone. Little did I know that what lay beyond this crimson veil was some of the most fun melodic black metal this side of Moonlight Sorcery. The same low-fi roughness that personifies Old Nick’s work grounds Silent Millenia’s starbound songwriting as it traverses the universe with an energetic punch reminiscent of Emperor or Stormkeep (“Awaken the Celestial Spell,” “Daemonic Mastery”). To help differentiate Silent Millenia’s sound from that of their peers, a gothic atmosphere ensorcells much of this material to great effect, merging eerie Victorian melodies with galactic adventurism in an unlikely pair (“Enthrone the Spectral”). Swirling synths and sparkling twinkles abound as well, creating blissful moments of interest as frosty tremolos and piercing blasts take full advantage of the false sense of security those entrancing clouds of synthetic instrumentation create (“Benighted Path to Darkness Mysterium,” “Reign in Cosmic Majesty”). Simply put, Celestial Twilight is an unexpected gem of a symphonic black metal record, bursting with killer ideas and infinite levels of raw, unabashed fun. You should hear it!
Kronos’ Unexpected Unearthments
Street Sects // Dry Drunk [August 15th, 2025 – Self Release]
Dry Drunk sticks to your inner surfaces, draining down like cigarette tar along paralyzed cilia to pool in your lungs until the cells themselves foment rebellion. Once it’s in you, you feel paranoid, wretched, and alone. So it’s the proper follow-up to Street Sects’ visionary debut, End Position. Like that record, Dry Drunk plumbs the most mundane and unsavory gutters of America for a cast of protagonists that it dwells in or dispatches with a mixture of pity and disgust, with vocalist Leo Ashline narrating their violent crimes and self-hatred in a mixture of croons, shrieks, and snarls that cook the air before the speakers into the scent of booze and rotten teeth. And like that record, Shaun Ringsmuth (Glassing) dresses the sets with a fractal litter of snaps, squeals, crashes, gunshots, and grinding electronics, caked in tar and collapsing just as soon as it is swept into a structure. And like End Position, Dry Drunk is a masterpiece. The impeccable six-song stretch from “Love Makes You Fat” through “Riding the Clock” ties you to the bumper and drags you along some of the duo’s most creative side-roads, through the simmering, straightjacketed sludge of “Baker Act” to the chopped-up, smirking electronica of “Eject Button.” Swerving between addled, unintelligible agony and unforgettable anthems, Dry Drunk, like End Position before it is nothing less than the life of a junkie scraped together, heated on a spoon, and injected into your head. Once you’ve taken a hit, you will never be quite the same.
Thus Spoke’s Frightening Fragments
Defacement // Doomed [August 22nd, 2025 – Self Release]
There’s music for every vibe.1 The one Defacement fits is an exclusively extreme metal flavor of moody that is only appreciable by genre fans, made tangibly more eerie by their persistent idiosyncratic use of dark ambient interludes amidst the viciously distorted blackened death. Audiences—and reviewers—tend to disparage these electronic segments, but I’ve always felt their crackling presence increases the analog horror of it all, and rather than being a breather from the intensity, they prolong the nausea, the sense of emptiness, and the abject fearfulness of head-based trauma. This latter concept grows more metaphorical still on Doomed, where the violence is inside the mind, purpose-erasing, and emotionally-detaching. The ambience might be the most sadly beautiful so far (“Mournful,” and “Clouded” especially), and the transitions into nightmarish heaviness arguably the most fluid. And the metal is undoubtedly the most ambitious, dynamic, and magnificent of Defacement’s career, combining their most gruesome dissonance (“Portrait”) with their most bizarrely exuberant guitar melodies (“Unexplainable,” “Unrecognised”). Solos drip tangibly with (emotional) resonance (“Unexplainable,” “Absent”) and there’s not a breath or a moment of wasted space. Yes, the band’s heavier side can suffer from a nagging sense of homogeneous mass, but it remains transporting. While I can appreciate why others do not appreciate Defacement, this is the first of their outings I can truthfully say mesmerised me on first listen.
ClarkKent’s Heated Hymns
Phantom Fire // Phantom Fire [August 8th, 2025 – Edged Circle Productions]
While I waded through the murky depths of the August promo sump, Steel implored me to take the eponymous third album from Phantom Fire. “The AMG commentariat love blackened heavy metal,” he said. I disregarded his advice at my peril, and while I ended up enjoying what I grabbed, it turns out this would have been solid too. Featuring members from Enslaved, Kraków. Hellbutcher, and Aeternus, Phantom Fire play old school speed metal that harks back to the likes of Motörhead and Iron Maiden’s Killers. Thanks to healthy doses of bass and production values that allow the instruments to shine, each song is infused with energetic grooves. The music sounds fresh, crisp, and clear, from the booming drums to Eld’s “blackened” snarls. Early tracks “Eternal Void” and “All For None” show off the catchy blend of simple guitar riffs and a hoppin’ bass accompanied by energetic kit work. While placing a somewhat lengthy instrumental track in the middle of a record usually slows it down, “Fatal Attraction” turns out to be a highlight. It tells a tragic love story involving a motorcycle with nothing but instruments, an engine revving, and some police sirens. The second half of Phantom Fire gets a bit on the weirder side, turning to some stoner and psychedelia. There’s a push and pull between the stoner and Motörhead speed stuff on songs like “Malphas” and “Submersible Pt. 2,” and this blend actually works pretty well. It turns out that they aren’t phantom after all—these guys are truly fire.
Burning Witches // Inquisition [August 22nd, 2025 – Napalm Records]
With six albums in eight years, Swiss quintet Burning Witches has really been burning rubber. While such prolific output in such a short time frame generally spells trouble, Inquisition is a solid piece of heavy/power metal. Burning Witches dabbles in a mix of speedy power metal and mid-tempo heavy metal, often sounding like ’80s stalwarts Judas Priest and Def Leppard. With Laura Guldemond’s gruff voice, they produce a more weighty, less happy version of power metal than the likes of Fellowship or Frozen Crown. While the songs stick to formulaic structures, tempo shifts from song to song help keep things from growing stale. We see this variety right from the get-go, where “Soul Eater” takes a high-energy approach before moving into the more mellow “Shame.” There’s even a pretty solid ballad, “Release Me,” that grounds the back half of the record. Songs of the sort that Burning Witches write need catchy choruses, and fortunately, they deliver. “High Priestess of the Night” is a particular standout, delivering a knock-out punch in its delivery. It helps that the instrumental parts are well-executed, from crunchy riffs to subdued solos to booming blast beats. Anyone looking for a solid bit of power metal that’s not too heavy on the cheese will find this worth a listen.
Deathhammer // Crimson Dawn [August 29th, 2025 – Hells Headbangers Records]
Celebrating 20 years of blackened speed, Deathhammer drop LP number six with the kind of energy that exhausted parents dread to see in their children at bedtime. This is my first foray with the band, and I am in awe of the relentless level of manic energy they keep throughout Crimson Dawn’s 39 minutes. If science could learn how to harness their energy, we’d have an endless source of renewables. The two-piece out of Norway channels classic Slayer on crack and even has moments reminiscent of Painkiller-era Judas Priest. They play non-stop thrash cranked to 11, with persistent blast beats and some dual guitar parts that leave your head spinning from the rapid-fire directions the riffs fire off in. The heart of the mania is singer Sergeant Salsten. His crazed vocals are amazing—snarling, shouting, and shrieking in a way that took me back to the manic pitch Judge Doom could reach in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He sings so fast that on the chorus of “Crimson Dawn,” it sounds like he says “Griffindor,” which had me searching confusedly for the Harry Potter tag. This was probably my favorite song, not just because of the Griffindor thing, but because that chorus is so catchy. Either way, it’s tough to pick a standout track because they all grip you by the throat and don’t let go. Crimson Dawn is a ton of fun and a must listen if you like your music fast.
Grin Reaper’s Bountiful Blight
Kallias // Digital Plague [August 14th, 2025 – Self Release]
Machine gun drumming, spacey synths, Morbid Angel-meets-Meshuggah riffing, Turian-esque barking and Voyager-reminiscent vocal melodies…what the fuck is going on here? The only thing more surprising than someone having the moxie to blend all these things together is how well they work in concert. Kallias doesn’t hold back on sophomore album Digital Plague, and the result is a rocket-fueled blast through forty-four minutes of eclectic, addictive prog. The mishmash of styles keeps the album fresh and unpredictable while never dipping its toes in inconsistent waters, and staccato rhythms propel listeners through eight tracks without losing steam. As with any prog metal worth its salt, Kallias brandishes technical prowess, and their cohesion belies the relatively short time they’ve been putting out music.2 The mix is well-suited to spotlight whoever needs it at a given time, whether the bass is purring (“Exogíini Kyriarchía”), the drums are being annihilated (“Pyrrhic Victory”), or a guitar solo nears Pettrucian wankery (“Phenomenal in Theory”). The end result is three-quarters of an hour filled with myriad influences that fuse into a sound all Kallias’s own, and it’s one I’ve returned to several times since discovering (also, credit to MontDoom for his stunning artwork, which helped initially draw my attention). Check it out—you’ll be sick if you avoid this one like the Plague.
Luke’s Kaleidoscopic Kicks
Giant Haze // Cosmic Mother [August 22nd, 2025 – Tonzonen Records]
Whereas many of my colleagues are bracing themselves for cooler conditions and harsh winters to come, in my neck of the woods, things are warming up. While my own wintry August filter proved scarce, there was one particular summery gem to lift moods with burly riffs and fat stoner grooves. Unheralded German act Giant Haze seemingly emerged out of nowhere during a random Bandcamp deep dive. Debut LP Cosmic Mother channels the good old days of ’90s-inspired desert rock, featuring grungy, doomy vibes via a groovy batch of riff-centric, hard-rocking and uplifting jams, evoking the nostalgic spirit of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Clutch and perhaps even a dash of Danzig. Punching out raucous, groove-soaked hard rockers with skyscraping hooks (“Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King of Tomorrow,” “Panic to Ride”), summery, funk–psych jams (“Sunrise”), and bluesy, punk-infused fireballs (“Crank in Public,” “Shrink Age”) Giant Haze get a lot of things right on this assured debut. The songwriting is deceptively diverse and punchy, bolstered by solid production, tight musicianship, and the swaggering, ever so slightly goofy vocal charms and powerful hooks of frontman Christoph Wollmann. Inevitably, a few rough spots appear, but overall Cosmic Mother showcases oodles of budding potential, an impactful delivery, cheeky sense of humor, and infectious, feel-good songcraft.
Spicie Forrest’s Foraged Fruit
Bask // The Turning [August 22nd, 2025 – Season of Mist]
Last seen in 2019, Bask returns with fourth LP, The Turning, a concept album following The Rider as she and The Traveler traverse the stars. They still peddle the unique blend of stoner rock and Americana Kenstrosity reviewed favorably in 2019, but 2025 sees them looking up for inspiration. The Turning incorporates a distinct cosmic bent (“The Traveler,” “The Turning”) and post-rock structures (“Dig My Heels,” “Unwound”). These augmentations to Bask’s core sound are enhanced by the masterful pedal steel of new official member Jed Willis. Whether floating through the firmament or tilling earthly pastures, Willis creates textures both fresh and intensely nostalgic. The infinite shifting vistas of The Turning’s front half coalesce into singular timeless visions on the back half, supporting its conceptual nature in both content and form. Like a combination of Huntsmen and Somali Yacht Club, Bask weaves riffs and melodies heard across the plains and through the void above with an unguarded authenticity felt in your soul.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Disseminating Discharge
Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell [August 1st, 2025 – Personal Records]
Stinky, sticky, slimy—all adjectives that define the ideal death metal platter. Myk Colby has been trying to chase this perfect balance in a reverb-wonky package with projects like the d-beaten Hot Graves and extra hazy Wharflurch, but vile death metal balance is hard to achieve. However, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell contains a recklessly pinched Demilichian riffage, classic piercing whammy bombs, and spook-minded synth ambience that places Plasmodulated with an odor more pungent than its peers. With an infected ear that festers equally with doom-loaded, Incantation-indebted drags (“Gelatinous Mutation ov Brewed Origin,” “Trapped in the Plasmovoid”) and Voivod-on-jenkem cutaways to foul-throated extravagence (“The Final Fuckening”). An air of intelligent tempo design keeps An Ocean from never feeling trapped in a maze of its own fumes, with Colby’s lush and bubbling synth design seguing tumbles into hammering deathly tremolo runs (“Such Rapid Sphacelation”) and Celtic Frosted riff tumbles (“Drowning in Sputum”) alike, all before swirling about his own tattered, trailing vocal sputters. Steady but slippery, elegant yet effluvial, An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell provides the necessary noxious pressure to corrode death metal-loving denizens into pure gloops of stained-denim pit worship. Delivered as labeled, Plasmodulated earns its hazardous declaration. We here at AMG are not liable for any OSHA violations that occur as a result of Plasmodulated consumption on the job, though.
#2025 #Aeternus #AmericanMetal #Americana #AnOceanOvPutridStinkyVileDisgustingHell #Aug25 #Bask #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BurningWitches #CelestialTwilightBeyondTheCrimsonVeil #CelticFrost #Clutch #CosmicMother #CrimsonDawn #Danzig #DarkAmbient #DeathMetal #Deathhammer #DefLeppard #Defacement #Demilich #DigitalPlague #Doomed #DryDrunk #DutchMetal #EdgedCircleProductions #Emperor #Enslaved #Fellship #FinnishMetal #FrozenCrown #FuManchu #GermanMetal #GiantHaze #Glassing #Hardcore #HeavyMetal #Hellbutcher #HellsHeadbangersRecords #HotGraves #Huntsmen #Incantation #Inquisition #IronMaiden #JudasPriest #Kallias #Kraków #Kyuss #MelodicBlackMetal #Meshuggah #MoonlightSorcery #MorbidAngel #Motörhead #NapalmRecords #NorwegianMetal #OldNick #PersonalRecords #PhantomFire #Plasmodulated #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SilentMillenia #Slayer #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SomaliYachtClub #SpeedMetal #StonerRock #Stormkeep #StreetSects #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #SwissMetal #SymphonicBlackMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheTurning #TonzonenRecords #Turian #Voivod #Voyager #Wharflurch
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Stuck in the Filter: April 2024’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists. Intensifies, even. We’re not even to the dead center of summer, where pavement melts and sinew sloughs off of bones. And yet, we toil. Endless trudges through the slime and grime of sharply angled ducts and beveled sheet metal characterize an average workday for my filtration minions, who do my bidding without question as I sip a piña colada in these run down and ragged headquarters. Alright fine, we don’t have piña coladas here, but a sponge can dream! A sponge can dream…
What was I saying? Oh, right. After many months of constant pep talks and gentle reminders with a cattle prod, my team of hack crack sifters managed a respectable haul from our April buildup. Dive in at your own peril!
Kenstrosity’s Sooty Slab
Exhumation // Master’s Personae [April 26th, 2024 – Pulverised Records]
Indonesian blackened death duo Exhumation never would’ve made it to my queue were it not for our burgeoning Discord server. Rollicking tunes, produced with a charming rawness that tingles my spine, task themselves with the summary destruction of that same spine and waste no time getting started. From the onset of opener “In Death Vortex,” Master’s Personae eviscerates with rabid teeth gnashing through my flesh. Ghoul (guitars) and Bones (vocals) display their respective talents vomiting souls out of their body and concocting sickening infernal riffs with aplomb—and made damn sure their session musicians could do more than just keep up on bass (Sebek), drums (Aldi), and lead guitar (J. Magus). With songs that kick as much ass-tonnage as highlights “Pierce the Abyssheart,” “Chaos Feasting,” “Thine Inmost Curse,” and late bloomer “Mahapralaya,” the only thing that could possibly stand in between you and total metallic indoctrination is the record’s gritty, extra-crunchy production. For some, that might even be its greatest selling point. Either way, Master’s Personae is, at its core, just a nonstop demonic party. Ipso facto, if you like fun, you like this. If you don’t, leave the Hall!
Thus Spoke’s Chucked Choices
Alpha Wolf // Half Living Things [April 5th, 2024 – SharpTone Records]
Aussie gang Alpha Wolf have always had an “angry” sound, but until now, they remained quite firmly smack dab in the middle of modern metalcore. With Half Living Things,1 however, the band move as far as they ever have into beatdown hardcore, albeit, a very glossy, and very metalcore interpretation of it. While many, myself included, think they sound better with a little bit of intrigue, a little bit of mournful melody and atmosphere, there’s no denying that this album does contain several bone-fide bangers. Opening run “Bring Back the Noise,” “Double-Edge Demise,” and “Haunter,” are a groovy set of smacks upside the head, and later cuts “Feign,” and “A Terrible Day for Rain” echo the same menace, safely keeping your head bobbing and your mean face on. The aggression can veer into the realm of cringe at points, not least on single “Sucks 2 Suck,” which includes the wild misstep of a thuggish rap bridge courtesy of ICE-T. But on the other hand, Alpha Wolf do show they have a heart, with surprisingly sadboi “Whenever You’re Ready,” and closer “Ambivalence.” It’s all pretty angsty, but questionable decisions aside, Half Living Things is worth at least the time it takes you to hear one or two of its best tracks. I’ll always be here for a little bit of adolescent ennui anyway.
Sarcasm // Mourninghoul [April 12th, 2024 – Hammerheart Records]
Whilst still a n00b, I reviewed Sarcasm’s previous album, Stellar Stream Obscured, and, to my initial surprise, really rather liked it. It was simply a quirk of circumstance that I didn’t pick up the promo for Mourninghoul. And looking back on that week, I wish I had. This thing is just as fun, just as furious, and once again the perfect balance between odd and straightforwardly blistering. Once again, they lace creepy organs and synthwork into death doom (“Withered Memories of Souls We Mourn,” “No Solace From Above”) to add a little mystique. Once again, they display some brilliant, beautiful, melodic black(ened death) metal riffery to lead refrains (“Lifelike Sleep,” “Dying Embers of Solitude,” “Absence if Reality”), not only soaking the listener in the nostalgia of the golden years of Dissection and Necrophobic, but memorable and moving in their own right. Overall, the album is a little slower and more atmospheric than its predecessor, but in this light perhaps a little more thoughtful. One to check out for anyone who dug Stellar Stream Obscured.
Dear Hollow’s Loudness Lard
Lord Spikeheart // The Adept [April 19th, 2024 – Haekalu Records]
Lord Spikeheart is the alias of Martin Kanja, one-half of grind/noise duo Duma, whose sole self-titled LP was received warmly back in 2020 by the gone-but-unforgotten Roquentin. Now a solo act, Spikeheart fully embraces the manic in his debut full-length The Adept, a fusion of noise, industrial, trap, grind, and hip-hop and tinged with native Kenyan instruments. – guaranteed to scare off unwanted listeners. Featuring a bevy of featured artists, The Adept is as jerky and unpredictable as you might expect from its laundry list of sounds. Including all, but not limited to, Author & Punisher-level of manufactured brutality (“Sham-Ra”), layers of jagged hip-hop a la Skech185 (“Emblem Blem,” “Djangili,” “33rd Degree Access”), and outright metal guitar solos and blastbeats (“Nobody”), as well as outright bananas explosive Igorrr-esque breakcore seizures and Kenyan percussion (“TYVM”) and ominous sprawls of haunting humid ambiance over manic beats (“Rem Fodder,” “Verbose Patmos,” “4AM in the Mara”), and there is little that is predictable about The Adept. Throw on Lord Spikeheart’s incredible charisma, shocking vocals, and evocative primal songwriting, and you’ve got yourself a tastefully insane and impressively uncomfortable slab of experimentation that feels dangerous and unrelenting in the right ways.
Whores. // War. [April 16th, 2024 – The Ghost is Clear Records]
Sometimes you just need a good concussion and drool out your brains to the curb because you got dinged around so much. Atlanta four-piece Whores. will provide mightily in more ways than one. Professing a riff-heavy noise rock/sludge metal combo reminiscent of Chat Pile or Iron Monkey, each of the tracks in War.’s 34-minute runtime is a thick-ass spanker with thick-ass riffs, bad-ass cymbal abuse, and mad-ass yells, and you’d be a fool to miss this broken-tooth abuse. Groove is embedded in the marrow of each bone, and the swill of riffs and noisy leads will get your head bobbing before you can learn how to pronounce opener “Malinches.” From the outright onslaughts of “Imposter Syndrome” and “Sicko,” to the bass builds and guitar squonks of “Quitter’s Fight Song” and “Hostage Therapy” or punky rhythms of “Hieronymous Bosch was Right” and “The Death of a Stuntman,” you don’t need to get all academic to abuse the drywall, and Whores. will set their teeth behind your bruised knuckles. The message is clear: get unga-bunga with riff.
Spit on Your Grave // Arkanum [April 12th, 2024 – Self Release]
You always run a risk when you change up your sound, even slightly. Mexican death metal peddlers Spit on Your Grave are familiar with it. Formerly bringin’ the slamz and gooey brutal shit to your court with unhinged insanity, Arkanum keeps the core sound while incorporating more tempo and nimbleness, making a blazing death metal album with some Behemoth-esque experimentation that keeps the album from falling into gnarly monotony and injects a necessary regality reflected in its art. Subtle plucking motifs grace opener “The Infection” and closer “The March of the Innocents,” chanting and choirs spruce up limper portions of “Into the Devil’s Realm,” and dancy rhythms and melodeath noodling kick up “Broken Hourglass.” In spite of the levels of experimentation, the riff reigns supreme throughout, made most plain in the no-holds-barred death metal assaults of “The Heretic,” “Dark Lullaby,” and “Self Sacrifice.” It’s somewhere between Behemoth’s wicked conjuration of crowns and Hate Eternal’s blazing scorched earth campaign, and while imperfect, Spit on Your Grave’s new direction is tantalizing.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Crossed Up Casting
Nuclear Tomb // Terror Labyrinthian [April 12th, 2024 – Everlasting Spew]
Filthy, frothing, furious, Nuclear Tomb embodies all that fueled the origins of the thrash and death movements, which actively rejected the tonal shift toward “pleasing” that pop-leaning forms of heavy metal were taking at the time. So, yes, it’s unsurprising to hear a punky and driven bass identity reminiscent of the overdriven pummeling of Dan Lilker in Nuclear Assault or Stéphane Picard in Obliveon. But though thrash rings true in the speed-needing assaults of “Fatal Visions” or “Vile Humanity,” death—the gnarled yet precise riffcraft you would heard in an early Pestilence summoning—feeds ugly and foul this acts hefty ambitions. Terror Labyrinthian gives exactly what its name promises: a sense of profound encapsulation and isolation in the density that Nucleur Tomb conjures alongside a sci-fi-informed fear and terror. Its ambition is such that it can fly off the rails a touch when it gets too moody (“Dominance & Persecution”), and its level of discordance can leave tracks feeling like intangible pulps of sick and snarling riffage (“Manufacturing Consent,” “Parasitic”). Despite these minor concerns, Labyrinthian Terror shakes enough to leave a worthy, full-length mark after two promising EPs. And with members of Nuclear Tomb floating around in their small scene with oddball grinders Ixias and the avant-minded Genevieve, it’s all but a promise that what comes next will be weird, frightening, and demanding.
Steel Druhm’s Rancid Requiems to Rotpitting
Engulfed // Unearthly Litanies of Despair [April 19th, 2024 – Me Saco Ojo]
Straight outta Turkey comes the vicious, face-melting death metal assault of Engulfed. Featuring members of Hyperdontia and Diabolizer and bearing hallmarks of both, Engulfed are a nasty savage on a war march to destroy all that lives and breathes. With a highly seasoned lineup and a lethal mission statement, Unearthly Litanies of Despair is a “not fucking around” kind of death platter full of blazing speed, thunderous blasts, and more sub-basement croaks and roars than you’d find in an illegal Balrog mining facility. All the old school legends get sound checked, with plenty of Vader, Morbid Angel, and Incantation-isms to be unearthed, but to my ears, Engulfed sounds most like brother band Diabolizer. That’s certainly not a bad thing, as anyone who heard 2021s Khalkedonian Death will attest. There’s not much subtly on display on Unearthly Litanies, and Engulfed are happy to blast away at Mach 9 for the bulk of the album’s runtime, only slowing down long enough to let slithery riffs do their tentacle things. It isn’t until the closing stanza “Occult Incantations” that they opt to get down and doomy, and though it runs way long at nearly 8 minutes, it digs up some nicely dark, gloomy textures. All in all a brutal trip to the belly of the beast feaster!
Coffin Curse // The Continuous Nothing [April 22nd, 2024 – Memento Mori]
The sophomore offering from Chile’s Coffin Curse is 100% military grade old school death with enough rot and pus to win over any genre fancier. The Continuous Nothing is really a continuous something, and that something is gnarly, thrashing death goodness in the varicose vein of Autopsy with some Deicide and Morbid Angel in the gore batter. There’s absolutely nothing new here, but the enthusiasm with which Coffin Curse comes at the classic death style is refreshing and invigorating. You’ll be smiling early into opener “Thin the Herd” due to its oh-so-righteous blend of Autopsy and vintage Morbid Angel, and it’s tough to blast “Bacchanal of the Mortal” and not want to throw your BarcaLounger out the fucking window. This is meat n’ tatters gutter death that could have come out in the late 80s or early 90s, but that doesn’t lessen its vitality and impact since these cats know how to write a ripping tune. I’m especially enamored with the disgusting vocals of Max Neira who gives even the hideous Chris Reifert a run for his scuzz-vomit money. This thing is just good, gross fun!
Tombstoner // Rot Stink Rip [April 26th, 2024 – Redefining Darkness]
Staten Island-based death thugs Tombstoner came back to kill with second album Rot Stink Rip, showcasing a whole lotta New York attitude. With a sound mixing mouth-breathing caveman brutality with New York hardcore undertones, the menu items all come with brass knuckles and steel-toed boots to your fat face (no substitutions!). This is street-level tough guy death with a Biohazard/Pantera-level IQ and anything remotely intellectual is tossed in the dumpster like a carpet-wrapped corpse. Songs like “Sealed in Blood” will rot your brain stem as it curb stomps your skull, and the beefy death grooves are ugly, stupid, and dangerous. Internal Bleeding-isms rebound off Skinless idioms amid the brainless forward momentum of the title track, and the groove-busting, barroom-bullying nastiness of primal cuts like “Metamorphosis” and “Reduced to Hate” are made for Roids Appreciation Day at Planet Meathead. The riffs are hella weighty and the overall approach is lead pipe brutality. Don’t bother spinning this if you’re one of those fancy-dancy tech types. This one is strictly for the gashouse gorillas and pimpanzees.
Saunders’ Slimy Selections
Satanic North // Satanic North [April 19th, 2024 – Reaper Entertainment]
Featuring members of Ensiferum, Finnish black metal troupe Satanic North ripped out a seething slab of old school black metal on their self-titled debut. Although the album seemed to drop with minimal fanfare or notice, having been clued into its existence, Satanic North has since provided a helluva fun time. Satanic North pull no punches and dispense with flash or bombast, adding modern beef to an endearingly old school formula that stomps hard. Harnessing the raw, punky, Venom-esque attitude of ’80s black metal, along with distinctive second-wave elements, and dashes of Darkthrone and Goatwhore, Satanic North is a varied, aggressive and utterly addictive opus. Regardless of the mode of destruction the band chooses at any given time, the songwriting quality generally maintains the rage. Grim, icy atmospheres envelope blasting, viciously executed songs, loaded with a bevy of badass riffs and pissed-off attitude. The relentless, hammering blows on opener “War,” sit comfortably alongside the crawling, sinister melodies and infectious hooks of “Village,” while expert pacing and builds highlight epic later album gem, “Kohti Kuolemaa.” Satanic North throw down some awesomely thrashy barnburners for good measure on powerhouse nuggets of black gold in the shape of “Wolf” and closer “Satanic North.” One of 2024’s underrated gems.
Iron Monkey // Spleen & Goad [April 5th, 2024 – Relapse Records]
UK veterans Iron Monkey’s 1998 opus Our Problem is a sludge classic that I’ve held in high regard for many years. Sadly, the untimely death of raw-throated vocalist Johnny Morrow, a distinctive, glass-gurgling beast behind the mic, saw the band dissolve, until reforming and crafting a solid comeback with 2017’s 9-13. Stripped own to a trio in their second coming, with long-serving guitarist Jim Rushby doing an admirable job taking over the vocal slot, Iron Monkey sound as though the piss, vinegar, and hatred still flows in their veins. Spleen & Goad offers few surprises, continuing the trend of its predecessor while maintaining the signature Iron Monkey sound. And although Iron Monkey cannot quite match the esteemed heights of their early days, this modern, well-trodden incarnation of the band still bludgeons, grooves and seethes with sledgehammer force and infectiously diseased riffs. Channeling the bluesy Sabbathian meets NOLA mode of sludge, with a side of Grief, and a shit ton of spite, the Iron Monkey lads deliver the goods again. Noisy, feedback-drenched bruisers rule the day; as swaggering, drunken grooves, surly riffs, and feral vocals drive this unhinged hate machine. Spleen & Goad is victim to some creeping bloat, however overall, it’s a stellar return and addition to their storied catalog, as rugged, bludgeoning cuts like “Misanthropizer,” “Concrete Shock,” “Rat Flag” and “Lead Transfusion” attests.
Mystikus Hugebeard’s Filthy Finding
Diabolic Oath // Oracular Hexations [April 5th, 2024 – Sentient Ruin Laboratories]
Oracular Hexations is a blast. It is a chaotic, colossally dense album of what can ostensibly be called blackened death metal, but the music is just so fucking filthy it might as well be sludge. The fun thing here is that the guitar and bass are completely fretless; the riffs aren’t hard to parse but the guitars feel almost slippery. It allows the brutal riffage of a heavy track like “Serpent Coils Suffocating the Mortal Wound” to become borderline hallucinogenic, while still hitting like a truck. The slower, oozing riffs of “Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices” and “Winged Ouroboros Mutating Unto Gold” have a real viscosity to them that always reminds me of the stoner doom stylings of Conan. This album is definitely a lot, but it’s an extremely satisfying listen. The fretless imprecision paired with the music’s intensity, the delightfully disgusting guitar tone, and the vocalist’s tectonic gurgles all give Oracular Hexations a ritualistic atmosphere so thick you can practically sink into it. There’s plenty one could say about the musicianship—the drummer deserves praise for his diverse, technical performance—but trying to dial in on any one ingredient is like trying to appreciate the subtle flavor undertones of sheep stomach in a plate of haggis. Just cram the whole thing in at once, man, because this is the kind of sensory brutalization that you’ve gotta just let happen to you.
Iceberg’s Singular Surfacing
Venomous Echoes // Split Formations and Infinite Mania [April 05, 2024 – I, Voidhanger Records]
Extreme metal’s penchant for horror and destruction never ceases to amaze me. It doesn’t matter how I came across Venomous Echoes second album Split Formations and Infinite Mania, one look at that album cover and the curtain rise of squelching music within had me transfixed. Brutal Floridian death metal meets the dissonant disintegration of Portal meets the crushing weight of funeral doom and they all come together in the unrated cut of a Cronenberg flick. One-man-band Benjamin Vanweelden takes the listener inside his own personal hell as he wrestles with body dysmorphia, making for an experience not unlike recent cuts by An Isolated Mind or The Reticent. This is challenging, highly uncomfortable music, abandoning pitch and rhythm at will, bending and twisting notes and smothering the listener with oppressive atmosphere. From the sickening stomping sound effects of opener “Ocular Maltosis ov Schizophrenia” to the ultra-dissonant ostinato and DSBM wailing of closer “Split Formations and Infinite Mania,” this album is the definition of the car crash you can’t look away from. Far outside any zone of comfort is exactly where Vanweelden wants his listeners, and I have to say this makes for a sickly impressive, revolting, yet mesmerizing experience.
#AlphaWolf #AmericanMetal #AnIsolatedMind #Arkanum #AustralianMetal #AuthorPunisher #AuthorAndPunisher #Autopsy #Behemoth #Biohazard #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #BlackenedDeathMetal #BrutalDeathMetal #ChatPile #ChileanMetal #CoffinCurse #Darkthrone #DeathMetal #Deicide #DiabolicOath #Diabolizer #Dissection #Duma #Engulfed #Ensiferum #EverlastingSpewRecords #Exhumation #FinnishMetal #FuneralDoom #Genevieve #Goatwhore #Grief #Grind #Grindcore #HaekaluRecords #HalfLivingThings #HammerheartRecords #Hardcore #HipHop #Hyperdontia #IVoidhangerRecords #Igorrr #Incantation #IndonesianMetal #Industrial #InternalBleeding #IronMonkey #Ixias #KenyanMetal #LordSpikeheart #MasterSPersonae #MeSacoUnOjoRecords #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #MementoMoriRecords #Metalcore #MexicanMetal #MorbidAngel #Mourninghoul #Necrophobic #Noise #NuclearAssault #NuclearTomb #Obliveon #OracularHexations #Pantera #Pestilence #Portal #PulverisedRecords #RawBlackMetal #ReaperEntertainment #RedefiningDarknessRecords #RelapseRecords #Review #Reviews #RotStinkRip #Sarcasm #SatanicNorth #SelfRelease #SharpToneRecords #Skech185 #Skinless #Slam #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SpitOnYourGrave #SpleenGoad #SplitFormationsAndInfiniteMania #StuckInTheFilter #SwedishMetal #TerrorLabyrinthian #TheAdept #TheContinuousNothing #TheGhostIsClearRecords #TheReticent #ThrashMetal #Tombstoner #Trap #TurkishMetal #UKMetal #UnearthlyLitaniesOfDespair #Vader #Venom #VenomousEchoes #War #Whores_
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Stuck in the Filter: April 2024’s Angry Misses
By Kenstrosity
The heat persists. Intensifies, even. We’re not even to the dead center of summer, where pavement melts and sinew sloughs off of bones. And yet, we toil. Endless trudges through the slime and grime of sharply angled ducts and beveled sheet metal characterize an average workday for my filtration minions, who do my bidding without question as I sip a piña colada in these run down and ragged headquarters. Alright fine, we don’t have piña coladas here, but a sponge can dream! A sponge can dream…
What was I saying? Oh, right. After many months of constant pep talks and gentle reminders with a cattle prod, my team of hack crack sifters managed a respectable haul from our April buildup. Dive in at your own peril!
Kenstrosity’s Sooty Slab
Exhumation // Master’s Personae [April 26th, 2024 – Pulverised Records]
Indonesian blackened death duo Exhumation never would’ve made it to my queue were it not for our burgeoning Discord server. Rollicking tunes, produced with a charming rawness that tingles my spine, task themselves with the summary destruction of that same spine and waste no time getting started. From the onset of opener “In Death Vortex,” Master’s Personae eviscerates with rabid teeth gnashing through my flesh. Ghoul (guitars) and Bones (vocals) display their respective talents vomiting souls out of their body and concocting sickening infernal riffs with aplomb—and made damn sure their session musicians could do more than just keep up on bass (Sebek), drums (Aldi), and lead guitar (J. Magus). With songs that kick as much ass-tonnage as highlights “Pierce the Abyssheart,” “Chaos Feasting,” “Thine Inmost Curse,” and late bloomer “Mahapralaya,” the only thing that could possibly stand in between you and total metallic indoctrination is the record’s gritty, extra-crunchy production. For some, that might even be its greatest selling point. Either way, Master’s Personae is, at its core, just a nonstop demonic party. Ipso facto, if you like fun, you like this. If you don’t, leave the Hall!
Thus Spoke’s Chucked Choices
Alpha Wolf // Half Living Things [April 5th, 2024 – SharpTone Records]
Aussie gang Alpha Wolf have always had an “angry” sound, but until now, they remained quite firmly smack dab in the middle of modern metalcore. With Half Living Things,1 however, the band move as far as they ever have into beatdown hardcore, albeit, a very glossy, and very metalcore interpretation of it. While many, myself included, think they sound better with a little bit of intrigue, a little bit of mournful melody and atmosphere, there’s no denying that this album does contain several bone-fide bangers. Opening run “Bring Back the Noise,” “Double-Edge Demise,” and “Haunter,” are a groovy set of smacks upside the head, and later cuts “Feign,” and “A Terrible Day for Rain” echo the same menace, safely keeping your head bobbing and your mean face on. The aggression can veer into the realm of cringe at points, not least on single “Sucks 2 Suck,” which includes the wild misstep of a thuggish rap bridge courtesy of ICE-T. But on the other hand, Alpha Wolf do show they have a heart, with surprisingly sadboi “Whenever You’re Ready,” and closer “Ambivalence.” It’s all pretty angsty, but questionable decisions aside, Half Living Things is worth at least the time it takes you to hear one or two of its best tracks. I’ll always be here for a little bit of adolescent ennui anyway.
Sarcasm // Mourninghoul [April 12th, 2024 – Hammerheart Records]
Whilst still a n00b, I reviewed Sarcasm’s previous album, Stellar Stream Obscured, and, to my initial surprise, really rather liked it. It was simply a quirk of circumstance that I didn’t pick up the promo for Mourninghoul. And looking back on that week, I wish I had. This thing is just as fun, just as furious, and once again the perfect balance between odd and straightforwardly blistering. Once again, they lace creepy organs and synthwork into death doom (“Withered Memories of Souls We Mourn,” “No Solace From Above”) to add a little mystique. Once again, they display some brilliant, beautiful, melodic black(ened death) metal riffery to lead refrains (“Lifelike Sleep,” “Dying Embers of Solitude,” “Absence if Reality”), not only soaking the listener in the nostalgia of the golden years of Dissection and Necrophobic, but memorable and moving in their own right. Overall, the album is a little slower and more atmospheric than its predecessor, but in this light perhaps a little more thoughtful. One to check out for anyone who dug Stellar Stream Obscured.
Dear Hollow’s Loudness Lard
Lord Spikeheart // The Adept [April 19th, 2024 – Haekalu Records]
Lord Spikeheart is the alias of Martin Kanja, one-half of grind/noise duo Duma, whose sole self-titled LP was received warmly back in 2020 by the gone-but-unforgotten Roquentin. Now a solo act, Spikeheart fully embraces the manic in his debut full-length The Adept, a fusion of noise, industrial, trap, grind, and hip-hop and tinged with native Kenyan instruments. – guaranteed to scare off unwanted listeners. Featuring a bevy of featured artists, The Adept is as jerky and unpredictable as you might expect from its laundry list of sounds. Including all, but not limited to, Author & Punisher-level of manufactured brutality (“Sham-Ra”), layers of jagged hip-hop a la Skech185 (“Emblem Blem,” “Djangili,” “33rd Degree Access”), and outright metal guitar solos and blastbeats (“Nobody”), as well as outright bananas explosive Igorrr-esque breakcore seizures and Kenyan percussion (“TYVM”) and ominous sprawls of haunting humid ambiance over manic beats (“Rem Fodder,” “Verbose Patmos,” “4AM in the Mara”), and there is little that is predictable about The Adept. Throw on Lord Spikeheart’s incredible charisma, shocking vocals, and evocative primal songwriting, and you’ve got yourself a tastefully insane and impressively uncomfortable slab of experimentation that feels dangerous and unrelenting in the right ways.
Whores. // War. [April 16th, 2024 – The Ghost is Clear Records]
Sometimes you just need a good concussion and drool out your brains to the curb because you got dinged around so much. Atlanta four-piece Whores. will provide mightily in more ways than one. Professing a riff-heavy noise rock/sludge metal combo reminiscent of Chat Pile or Iron Monkey, each of the tracks in War.’s 34-minute runtime is a thick-ass spanker with thick-ass riffs, bad-ass cymbal abuse, and mad-ass yells, and you’d be a fool to miss this broken-tooth abuse. Groove is embedded in the marrow of each bone, and the swill of riffs and noisy leads will get your head bobbing before you can learn how to pronounce opener “Malinches.” From the outright onslaughts of “Imposter Syndrome” and “Sicko,” to the bass builds and guitar squonks of “Quitter’s Fight Song” and “Hostage Therapy” or punky rhythms of “Hieronymous Bosch was Right” and “The Death of a Stuntman,” you don’t need to get all academic to abuse the drywall, and Whores. will set their teeth behind your bruised knuckles. The message is clear: get unga-bunga with riff.
Spit on Your Grave // Arkanum [April 12th, 2024 – Self Release]
You always run a risk when you change up your sound, even slightly. Mexican death metal peddlers Spit on Your Grave are familiar with it. Formerly bringin’ the slamz and gooey brutal shit to your court with unhinged insanity, Arkanum keeps the core sound while incorporating more tempo and nimbleness, making a blazing death metal album with some Behemoth-esque experimentation that keeps the album from falling into gnarly monotony and injects a necessary regality reflected in its art. Subtle plucking motifs grace opener “The Infection” and closer “The March of the Innocents,” chanting and choirs spruce up limper portions of “Into the Devil’s Realm,” and dancy rhythms and melodeath noodling kick up “Broken Hourglass.” In spite of the levels of experimentation, the riff reigns supreme throughout, made most plain in the no-holds-barred death metal assaults of “The Heretic,” “Dark Lullaby,” and “Self Sacrifice.” It’s somewhere between Behemoth’s wicked conjuration of crowns and Hate Eternal’s blazing scorched earth campaign, and while imperfect, Spit on Your Grave’s new direction is tantalizing.
Dolphin Whisperer’s Crossed Up Casting
Nuclear Tomb // Terror Labyrinthian [April 12th, 2024 – Everlasting Spew]
Filthy, frothing, furious, Nuclear Tomb embodies all that fueled the origins of the thrash and death movements, which actively rejected the tonal shift toward “pleasing” that pop-leaning forms of heavy metal were taking at the time. So, yes, it’s unsurprising to hear a punky and driven bass identity reminiscent of the overdriven pummeling of Dan Lilker in Nuclear Assault or Stéphane Picard in Obliveon. But though thrash rings true in the speed-needing assaults of “Fatal Visions” or “Vile Humanity,” death—the gnarled yet precise riffcraft you would heard in an early Pestilence summoning—feeds ugly and foul this acts hefty ambitions. Terror Labyrinthian gives exactly what its name promises: a sense of profound encapsulation and isolation in the density that Nucleur Tomb conjures alongside a sci-fi-informed fear and terror. Its ambition is such that it can fly off the rails a touch when it gets too moody (“Dominance & Persecution”), and its level of discordance can leave tracks feeling like intangible pulps of sick and snarling riffage (“Manufacturing Consent,” “Parasitic”). Despite these minor concerns, Labyrinthian Terror shakes enough to leave a worthy, full-length mark after two promising EPs. And with members of Nuclear Tomb floating around in their small scene with oddball grinders Ixias and the avant-minded Genevieve, it’s all but a promise that what comes next will be weird, frightening, and demanding.
Steel Druhm’s Rancid Requiems to Rotpitting
Engulfed // Unearthly Litanies of Despair [April 19th, 2024 – Me Saco Ojo]
Straight outta Turkey comes the vicious, face-melting death metal assault of Engulfed. Featuring members of Hyperdontia and Diabolizer and bearing hallmarks of both, Engulfed are a nasty savage on a war march to destroy all that lives and breathes. With a highly seasoned lineup and a lethal mission statement, Unearthly Litanies of Despair is a “not fucking around” kind of death platter full of blazing speed, thunderous blasts, and more sub-basement croaks and roars than you’d find in an illegal Balrog mining facility. All the old school legends get sound checked, with plenty of Vader, Morbid Angel, and Incantation-isms to be unearthed, but to my ears, Engulfed sounds most like brother band Diabolizer. That’s certainly not a bad thing, as anyone who heard 2021s Khalkedonian Death will attest. There’s not much subtly on display on Unearthly Litanies, and Engulfed are happy to blast away at Mach 9 for the bulk of the album’s runtime, only slowing down long enough to let slithery riffs do their tentacle things. It isn’t until the closing stanza “Occult Incantations” that they opt to get down and doomy, and though it runs way long at nearly 8 minutes, it digs up some nicely dark, gloomy textures. All in all a brutal trip to the belly of the beast feaster!
Coffin Curse // The Continuous Nothing [April 22nd, 2024 – Memento Mori]
The sophomore offering from Chile’s Coffin Curse is 100% military grade old school death with enough rot and pus to win over any genre fancier. The Continuous Nothing is really a continuous something, and that something is gnarly, thrashing death goodness in the varicose vein of Autopsy with some Deicide and Morbid Angel in the gore batter. There’s absolutely nothing new here, but the enthusiasm with which Coffin Curse comes at the classic death style is refreshing and invigorating. You’ll be smiling early into opener “Thin the Herd” due to its oh-so-righteous blend of Autopsy and vintage Morbid Angel, and it’s tough to blast “Bacchanal of the Mortal” and not want to throw your BarcaLounger out the fucking window. This is meat n’ tatters gutter death that could have come out in the late 80s or early 90s, but that doesn’t lessen its vitality and impact since these cats know how to write a ripping tune. I’m especially enamored with the disgusting vocals of Max Neira who gives even the hideous Chris Reifert a run for his scuzz-vomit money. This thing is just good, gross fun!
Tombstoner // Rot Stink Rip [April 26th, 2024 – Redefining Darkness]
Staten Island-based death thugs Tombstoner came back to kill with second album Rot Stink Rip, showcasing a whole lotta New York attitude. With a sound mixing mouth-breathing caveman brutality with New York hardcore undertones, the menu items all come with brass knuckles and steel-toed boots to your fat face (no substitutions!). This is street-level tough guy death with a Biohazard/Pantera-level IQ and anything remotely intellectual is tossed in the dumpster like a carpet-wrapped corpse. Songs like “Sealed in Blood” will rot your brain stem as it curb stomps your skull, and the beefy death grooves are ugly, stupid, and dangerous. Internal Bleeding-isms rebound off Skinless idioms amid the brainless forward momentum of the title track, and the groove-busting, barroom-bullying nastiness of primal cuts like “Metamorphosis” and “Reduced to Hate” are made for Roids Appreciation Day at Planet Meathead. The riffs are hella weighty and the overall approach is lead pipe brutality. Don’t bother spinning this if you’re one of those fancy-dancy tech types. This one is strictly for the gashouse gorillas and pimpanzees.
Saunders’ Slimy Selections
Satanic North // Satanic North [April 19th, 2024 – Reaper Entertainment]
Featuring members of Ensiferum, Finnish black metal troupe Satanic North ripped out a seething slab of old school black metal on their self-titled debut. Although the album seemed to drop with minimal fanfare or notice, having been clued into its existence, Satanic North has since provided a helluva fun time. Satanic North pull no punches and dispense with flash or bombast, adding modern beef to an endearingly old school formula that stomps hard. Harnessing the raw, punky, Venom-esque attitude of ’80s black metal, along with distinctive second-wave elements, and dashes of Darkthrone and Goatwhore, Satanic North is a varied, aggressive and utterly addictive opus. Regardless of the mode of destruction the band chooses at any given time, the songwriting quality generally maintains the rage. Grim, icy atmospheres envelope blasting, viciously executed songs, loaded with a bevy of badass riffs and pissed-off attitude. The relentless, hammering blows on opener “War,” sit comfortably alongside the crawling, sinister melodies and infectious hooks of “Village,” while expert pacing and builds highlight epic later album gem, “Kohti Kuolemaa.” Satanic North throw down some awesomely thrashy barnburners for good measure on powerhouse nuggets of black gold in the shape of “Wolf” and closer “Satanic North.” One of 2024’s underrated gems.
Iron Monkey // Spleen & Goad [April 5th, 2024 – Relapse Records]
UK veterans Iron Monkey’s 1998 opus Our Problem is a sludge classic that I’ve held in high regard for many years. Sadly, the untimely death of raw-throated vocalist Johnny Morrow, a distinctive, glass-gurgling beast behind the mic, saw the band dissolve, until reforming and crafting a solid comeback with 2017’s 9-13. Stripped own to a trio in their second coming, with long-serving guitarist Jim Rushby doing an admirable job taking over the vocal slot, Iron Monkey sound as though the piss, vinegar, and hatred still flows in their veins. Spleen & Goad offers few surprises, continuing the trend of its predecessor while maintaining the signature Iron Monkey sound. And although Iron Monkey cannot quite match the esteemed heights of their early days, this modern, well-trodden incarnation of the band still bludgeons, grooves and seethes with sledgehammer force and infectiously diseased riffs. Channeling the bluesy Sabbathian meets NOLA mode of sludge, with a side of Grief, and a shit ton of spite, the Iron Monkey lads deliver the goods again. Noisy, feedback-drenched bruisers rule the day; as swaggering, drunken grooves, surly riffs, and feral vocals drive this unhinged hate machine. Spleen & Goad is victim to some creeping bloat, however overall, it’s a stellar return and addition to their storied catalog, as rugged, bludgeoning cuts like “Misanthropizer,” “Concrete Shock,” “Rat Flag” and “Lead Transfusion” attests.
Mystikus Hugebeard’s Filthy Finding
Diabolic Oath // Oracular Hexations [April 5th, 2024 – Sentient Ruin Laboratories]
Oracular Hexations is a blast. It is a chaotic, colossally dense album of what can ostensibly be called blackened death metal, but the music is just so fucking filthy it might as well be sludge. The fun thing here is that the guitar and bass are completely fretless; the riffs aren’t hard to parse but the guitars feel almost slippery. It allows the brutal riffage of a heavy track like “Serpent Coils Suffocating the Mortal Wound” to become borderline hallucinogenic, while still hitting like a truck. The slower, oozing riffs of “Rusted Madness Tethering Misbegotten Haruspices” and “Winged Ouroboros Mutating Unto Gold” have a real viscosity to them that always reminds me of the stoner doom stylings of Conan. This album is definitely a lot, but it’s an extremely satisfying listen. The fretless imprecision paired with the music’s intensity, the delightfully disgusting guitar tone, and the vocalist’s tectonic gurgles all give Oracular Hexations a ritualistic atmosphere so thick you can practically sink into it. There’s plenty one could say about the musicianship—the drummer deserves praise for his diverse, technical performance—but trying to dial in on any one ingredient is like trying to appreciate the subtle flavor undertones of sheep stomach in a plate of haggis. Just cram the whole thing in at once, man, because this is the kind of sensory brutalization that you’ve gotta just let happen to you.
Iceberg’s Singular Surfacing
Venomous Echoes // Split Formations and Infinite Mania [April 05, 2024 – I, Voidhanger Records]
Extreme metal’s penchant for horror and destruction never ceases to amaze me. It doesn’t matter how I came across Venomous Echoes second album Split Formations and Infinite Mania, one look at that album cover and the curtain rise of squelching music within had me transfixed. Brutal Floridian death metal meets the dissonant disintegration of Portal meets the crushing weight of funeral doom and they all come together in the unrated cut of a Cronenberg flick. One-man-band Benjamin Vanweelden takes the listener inside his own personal hell as he wrestles with body dysmorphia, making for an experience not unlike recent cuts by An Isolated Mind or The Reticent. This is challenging, highly uncomfortable music, abandoning pitch and rhythm at will, bending and twisting notes and smothering the listener with oppressive atmosphere. From the sickening stomping sound effects of opener “Ocular Maltosis ov Schizophrenia” to the ultra-dissonant ostinato and DSBM wailing of closer “Split Formations and Infinite Mania,” this album is the definition of the car crash you can’t look away from. Far outside any zone of comfort is exactly where Vanweelden wants his listeners, and I have to say this makes for a sickly impressive, revolting, yet mesmerizing experience.
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